Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon - October 9, 2016

I can't believe this is my 6th Twin Cities Marathon today.  Always the highlight of my race season, particularly since I trimmed down to just one marathon per year.  It also brings me full circle back to where my very first race nine years ago (2007).  Even in 2007, I thought this was going to be a "one and done" thing.  No idea I would still be doing this almost 10 years later.  Hoping very much that this race will be a highlight to what has been a very disappointing race season for me so far.  Every year I've been able to point to a small handful of races where I surprised myself by exceeding my expectations.  So far this year, none of my races can be categorized in that manner.    

The biggest issue this year has been a small handful of in-race injuries (calf cramping) that derailed my performance - particularly in the shorter/faster races.  I've never had an injury during a race until this year.  But this year it became the norm, forcing me to drop out of one race and skip another for fear of re-injury.  Although I dropped out of a half marathon at the midway point, I was able to finish two other half marathons without injury.  However my times were slower than expected.  But I'm coming into today's race feeling very good about how my aggressive high mileage training has gone over the past six weeks.

Then three days before the marathon, I became ill.  A bad head cold completely sapped my strength.  On Friday, two days before the marathon, I really thought I would have to withdraw due to illness.  A 26 mile race is nothing to mess around with - particularly when one's health is not 100%.  However it's also very hard to walk away, after months of hard work and training to prepare for the race.  I convinced myself last night that I felt well enough to give it a go.  Deep down I knew I wasn't 100%.  A bad head cold usually takes two weeks to flush through my system.  This was just going to be another obstacle to overcome in a race season filled with many obstacles.

Another reason I wanted to run so badly today was the weather.  We have been blessed with good weather for this race almost every year and today was no exception.  It was sunny, dry and relatively calm with an air temperature in the upper 30's at the start, warming to the upper 40's by the end of race.  In the weeks leading up to the race, I always worry about the potential for bad weather.  The marathon is a long, difficult, grueling race that doesn't need help from the weather to make it even tougher than it already is.  But today, the weather was about as good as you can ask for.    

Although the weather was great for racing, 38 degrees is a bit chilly just waiting around for the race to start.  With U.S. Bank Stadium now in operation, just two blocks from the starting line, it would have been nice for the doors to be open for runners to warm like was done in the old Metrodome days.  However today, the Vikings have a home game at noon and new security laws prevent non-event access to the building 24 hours prior to the game.  This conflict was caused by the Ryder Cup which was in town last weekend.  Normally, marathon weekend would have been last weekend too, but was pushed to this weekend to allow the Ryder Cup to take center stage.  The NFL will continue to schedule the Vikings out of town the first weekend in October, so the marathon can utilize the stadium as base camp for the runners before the race, as in years past with the Metrodome.

As the race began, all was good.  I settled into my race pace and tried to feed off the noisy crowds that lined the Minneapolis lakes and parkways that dominate the first half of the race.  Heading north on the east side of Lake Nokomis is the midway point of the race.  There are time clocks scattered throughout the course, but it's the clock on Nokomis at the 13.1 mile mark that I use to gauge how I'm doing and motivate me for the second half of the race.  My time was 1:38 this year.  Two minutes slower than last year.  Still not bad though, but it was the first indication that a 3:15 marathon may not be waiting for me at the end of the race.

I didn't want to allow negative thoughts into my head at the time, but if I had been honest with myself, I would have recognized that I wasn't running as smooth and efficiently as I did last year.  My time was okay to this point, but the first half of the race took more out of me than it did last year, despite running two minutes slower.  Over the next five miles I tried to convince myself that because I ran two minutes slower, I now have more energy left in the tank to tackle the second half of the race.  A positive approach to take mentally, but one that became more and more difficult to convince myself of with each mile that passed.

Like it or not and I definitely didn't like it, my mile splits were not delivering the news I was hoping for.  No major "bonks" but the splits were a few seconds slower with each mile I completed. As I reached the 18 mile mark, shortly before crossing over to the St Paul side of the river, I knew my time was going to be at least five minutes slower than last year.  So I held out hope that I could "will" myself to a 3;20 marathon over the final eight miles of the race.  Miles 20 and 21 are slightly downhill along the east side of the river on the St Paul side.  But my mile splits continued to slow, despite to help of gravity.  This was a devastating and fatal blow to my psyche.  At that point I admitted to myself that my tank was truly empty and I still had five miles to go.  The next two miles (22/23) were uphill, the toughest two miles of the course.  I was running on life support now.  It was clear that although I was feeling better this morning than I had been the prior two days, my body had not fully recovered from my illness and I began this race with less than a full tank of gas.        

There is nothing worse in a marathon, than to realize your goals are no longer achievable and yet you somehow still need to reach the finish line.  All motivation is gone and the miles seem to be suspended in time.  You run and run, but never seem to reach the next mile split...or so it seems.  It was an ugly finish for me, but I did finish.  The attached pictures are blurry because I captured still images from several video clips my son took from different locations along the course.  Although they seem appropriate, as my mind was in a complete fog and my vision just as blurry.  I finished with a time of 3:29:53 - 15 minutes slower than last year.  My slowest marathon in 6 years.  Overall, I finished 1,045 out of 8,556 finishers and 22 out of 229 finishers in my age group.  It is what it is.  This race fits right in with how my race season has gone this year.  I have two races remaining to close the season.  A 10 Mile race on October 29th and a Thanksgiving Day 5k.  My optimism is always renewed as a new race approaches.  But as for today, I'm just glad it's over.      

Race results: http://www.mtecresults.com/runner/show?rid=2217&race=4497

Jeff Winter City of Lakes Half Marathon - September 11, 2016

This was going to be my 7th race of the season today.  But it's not been a good race season for me so far.  As a result, today's City of Lakes Half Marathon is only the 4th race I've actually finished this year.  Last month I dropped out of the Urban Wildland Half Marathon at the 8 mile mark due to severe tightness in both calf muscles, representing just the second time I've dropped out of a race in my life.  The other was the 2012 Twin Cities Marathon.  That year I was coming back from a month long injury and simply wasn't ready to run a full marathon.  I ran the first 16 miles as a solid training run and then dropped out at a pre-determined location to hook up with my family. But I had every intention of finishing last month's race, but my calf muscles brought me to my knees again.

So today is another opportunity to start and hopefully finish a race.  I'm also directly at the height of my high mileage week's in preparation for next month's Twin Cities Marathon.  I've successfully completed 3 - 20 mile training runs over the last 3 weeks, with one more scheduled for Saturday.  My training has gone very well this summer.  In fact it has gone so well, that my race performance issues have been very disappointing.  Still not sure why my calf muscles have been causing me so many problems when running uptempo race pace.  I've tried kinesiology tape, compression socks and other magic potions that supposedly minimize cramping issues, but nothing has worked so far.  I fear that on the eve of my 60th birthday, age is likely the main factor.  With no changes or issues with my training program, diet, or health otherwise, it seems like the age may be the only logical explanation remaining.  I just don't want to accept that reason yet.  

This half marathon is a two lap race around Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet as outlined on the map below.  I've run this race twice before as a 25k (15 miles).  A few years ago they changed the race to a standard half marathon.  It was a sunny, 60 degree morning, buy strong winds were in the forecast.  For the most part, the winds were not a factor until I reached the 10 mile mark.  By then, the wind was starting to pick up from the south with intensity.  I wanted to maintain a 7 minute mile pace in this race.  But just couldn't hang onto that pace over the last few miles.  But I did finish the race with no major issues.  So the way this year has gone, I'm happy about that.

I finished with a chip time of 1:33:30.  I ran about 30 seconds faster than my July half marathon, but still 2-4 minute slower than my top 10 half marathon times.  My race pace was 7:09/mile vs. my 7:00 minute mile target.  Over I finished 136th among 1,024 finishers and 8th among 45 in my age group.  Today's race also doubled as the Minnesota Half Marathon Championship for 2016 and one of the USATF Minnesota Team Circuit events.  So a very strong field of runners from all age groups turned out for today's race, which featured 5 new Minnesota age group records.
 
The next race on my calendar is the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon on October 9th.  I feel good about my training mileage and training plan overall.  Just not sure how my body will respond to the full marathon distance this year, considering my slower race times so far.  Guess I will find out one way or the other, 4 weeks from today.

Results:
http://www.raceberryjam.com/2016/colmen.html

Red White and Boom Half Marathon - July 4, 2016

It's been over 11 weeks since my last race, but not by design.  The left calf cramp/strain issues I experienced in my first two races took longer than I hoped to heal.  I badly wanted to run the Medtronic TC 1 mile on May 12th, but decided to skip the race for precautionary reasons.  My injury was much improved, but knowing the TC1 would be a short, fast, uptempo race, I just didn't want to risk blowing it out again.

My next scheduled race was the Minneapolis Half Marathon on June 5th.  However the race was cancelled right before the event, due to a conflict with the race course permit.  Apparently a section of the course was impacted by mudslide that happened several months ago and the city is still working on road repairs there.  But it forced the city of Minneapolis to refuse approval of the course permit, asking that race organizers to come back with an alternative for that section of the course.  Race organizers dragged their feet too long and eventually had no choice but to cancel the event.  This was a large race impacting thousands of participants.  I place full blame on the race organizers, as the city gave them more than enough time to find an alternative for the city to approve.  

Which brings me to today's race.  I registered for all my races in January.  At that time, a 4th of July race sounded really nice and cozy.  The weather was actually quite nice considering that heat and humidity is not foreign to even Minnesota this time of year.  It was 64 degrees at the start of the race (6:30am) and about 70 degrees at the finish line (8:00am), with sunny sky's and light winds.  This was an early morning race.  A very early morning race.  I got up at 4:30am, arrived at the race site by 5:30am and got warmed up and ready to go by 6:30am.

My left calf injury is feeling fine again now, however I didn't enter this race with a great deal of confidence.  I was a bit worried that running again at race pace may potentially re-aggravate the injury, as it's been 11+ weeks since I've run extended miles at race pace.  Not the confidence builder I am looking for coming into this race.  I figured my best approach was to go out at a moderate half marathon pace initially and take it from there.  The last thing I wanted to have happen is another calf aggravation early in the race and then have to gut it out for another 10 miles or so.  If that happened, I figured I would likely drop out, rather than try to run uptempo for that distance, risking serious injury.    

Today's race began near downtown Minneapolis on the along the Mississippi River on West River Parkway just west of the Stone Arch Bridge.  From there, the course headed west on Plymouth Avenue, then north on Theodore Wirth Parkway.  Then north and eventually east on Victory Memorial Drive back to the river.  From there it followed the river south back to the finish line on the northeast end of the Stone Arch Bridge.

My intention was to run the first few miles at a moderate half marathon race pace around 7 minutes/mile, but my Garmin was registering an 8 minute mile pace across the first 3 miles.  After 9 years of running, I have a good sense for what my pace is without the assistance of a Garmin and I felt like I was running 7 minute miles.  By mile 3 I was so discouraged with my race pace that I just wanted to get tot he finish line and call it a day.  Going into this race I had no aspirations of competing for one of my top half marathon times, but I also wasn't anticipating my race pace to be this slow either.  I didn't realize that my Garmin was malfunctioning.  I've never had problems with it in the 9 years I've used Garmin's.  But for some reason, it chose to malfunction during my race today.  My total time was spot on to the second with the race clock, but my Garmin was over-extending my mile splits early in the race, which is why my pace was registering slower than it actually was.  In hindsight I should have questioned this, but I wrongly assumed it was accurate.  I figured the 11 week race layoff had a bigger impact on my ability to race today than I expected.

Eventually, my Garmin began measuring miles correctly, but my overall distance and pace was messed up because of the early miles.  When I crossed the finish line, my Garmin reflected a distance of 12.5 miles total vs. the 13.1 miles I actually ran.  So my actual race time/pace was faster (7:11/mile) than I thought I was running, but still well off my top 10 half marathon times.  I finished with a time of 1:33;58, good for 89th place among 2,266 finishers and 3rd in my age group among 68.  It felt good to finally get another race under my belt, but I also want to get back to my true racing form.  My time today was almost 4 minutes slower than average half marathon times.  Hopefully I can get back on track in time for my next race which is also a half marathon - the Urban Wildland in Richfield on August 6th.          

Results:
http://www.mtecresults.com/runner/show?race=4176&rid=1132