Seattle

Conditions were perfect for the Seattle Marathon this year. The Space Needle looked almost alien in the morning, with fog circling it, and the temperature sat arond 50. My time was 3:59, and I think I ran poorly, for where I’m at right now. No big deal, but still, it's hard to get too far away from the clock. The reasons were several---I think my pre-race eats were off—no more Teriyaki combos the night before; my shoes were a half size too big; and I ran a bit too much the days before, though not marathons like some. Notably, I just hurt, a bit in the hip, some in the feet, and I was never inspired to push through the pain. I’m a trail guy--roads beat me up. All that said, my main issue was I didn’t really focus on how I wanted to run in the first place—I just went out and ran, and figured I’d see how it went. Hoping for the incidental good time.
-
This is a mistake--if I want to be completely satisfied with my race day efforts, I should prepare better mentally. I know this. Visualize success, and all that. The four C’s: Commitment, Compsure, Confidence, Concentration. (: That's from a sports psychology course I took a while back. (: I have a number of phrases I’ll repeat to myself when I’m on. I didn’t do any of this, which usually isn't a big deal, but now and again I leave a bit dissapointed, and that was the story with this year's finish at Seattle. I know I could've pushed through the pain, changed my tempo, but I wasn't mentally prepared to do so. Life is still good--no big deal. Live, learn, live some more. This paragraph is breaking the cheese meter.
-
My first half was totally lame, roughly 1:58, for all of the above reasons. Somewhere around mile 16, I decided to try to keep it under 4:00, which required sub 9s. I did it, but I had to work for it a bit, because the course is much harder in the second half. This wasn't that lame, although even here I could've ran faster, and was going just fast enough to come in under 4:00. I was totally geared for something longer. One thing I noticed was that when I thought about running faster, I was able to speed up considerably, but if I just ran, most of the time I wasn't kicking too hard. Age. If only I had more commitment, composure, confidence and concentration. Oh well. I finished strong and feel good now--obviously, something went wrong.
-
My favorite thing about this year’s Seattle had nothing to do with the run. I totally dialed it in for getting in and out of the race. I left MV at 6:20, sort of late really, and then stopped at Marysville McDonalds for coffee. I took the U. District exit, hopped onto 99, and parked immediately at the Seattle Center for $8. The whole trip took less than an hour. In past years, I’ve sat for endless minutes coming off I-5, worried about missing the start, or had trouble locating parking, or waiting in line to pay for parking at a machine. Also, leaving the race this year was a snap, with the garage sitting across the street from the finish line, and then one right turn out of the garage, and from there a straight drive on to I-5. Hassle free marathon!
-
Also, of note, this was my 8th Seattle, going back to the old Burke Gillman route in the 90s; my 6th in a row! what’s going on there?; and I’m pretty sure this was my 50th marathon. I might also say that I thought this year’s version of Seattle seemed a bit better organized than in some recent years, with lots of GU on the course, great volunteers, nothing to complain about. I do miss Ivar’s clam chowder not being at the finish. That’s a good Seattle tradition—there ought to be some distinctly Seattle touch. Maybe it was there and I missed it.
-
Up next—well, my calendar’s pretty open. I expect I’ll do the Fairhaven Frosty 10k next week with some friends, which is becoming a bit of a tradition for me in its own right. After that, maybe the Lake Samish half in January, probably the Bridle Trails 50k, and almost certainly the Honeywagon half in Everson in February, definitely a tradition. I’m tossing around all sorts of longer distance things for 2009, but nothing’s inked—it’ll be a challenge to match this year, which has been great.

Rock and Roll Means Well

Friday night, 9:45 PM. Prefunk at the Hooverville, knocking down caffienated beverages with my not so innocent mates--Steve, Randy, Vaughn. Good times---we were talking and realized we were nigh on 20 years as accomplices. Exit soon after, suitably orientated, across the street to the Showbox SoDo for...the....[dramatic blog pause]...the Drive By Truckers. I've wanted to see them for about five years now--they're southern goth rock, more or less, and they officially rocked!! I think I liked them more than my friends, although they were into them for sure. I noticed some people were just kind of watching with the old hand on the chin, hmmm look. Whatever. Some were totally getting into it, and I was part of thatsome. For the encore, a gorilla came on the stage, and then the opening band, The Hold Steady, and then they went on for about 45 minutes, at least, with Let There Be Rock (their version) and a VH cover, Ain't Talking Bout Love. Perfect. My favorite song though was from their new album--That Man I Shot, all about a soldier in Iraq killing someone in self-defense. DBT are liberal, anti-war, and this song just blisters the ears and psyche in all the right ways.

Nothing notable running wise this weekend. I ran a hard 2.5 hours Saturday, and then wandered around the Nookachamps on Sunday. I have been doing some cool headlamp runs. I was recently charged by a deer, rolled my ankle coming off a tower, and got ridiculously wet on some other Friday night, puddle stomping on the ridge. Life is good.

Mountain Masochist

Having grown up in Virginia and Maryland, and with family still there, I’ve been hankering to find a good east coast trail run. Virginia is one of the most beautiful places in the world when the trees turn color in the fall, and so I’ve had my eye on the Mountain Masochist Trail Run 50 miler in southern Virginia for several years now.
-
I thought this would be the year, but then this spring several Skagit running friends in Washington State decided to do a field trip back to DC for the USMC marathon, which is the weekend before. Peer pressure prevailed, and I signed up for USMC. Still, as the summer progressed, I couldn’t get away from the notion of giving MM a try. Finally, with a late registration, and a bit of rearranging of flights and plans, I went ahead and scheduled both, turning the trip into a 9 day visit with the folks. I was quite worried about trying to do both runs, inside of a week, as that obviously is a little much. So....I ran USMC, but not too seriously. The run I really wanted to do, and finish, was the Masochist.
-
MMTR is hard. Hard enough, at least. It is longer than 50 miles, more like 54, or 50 “Horton” miles, named after the race founder and director for 25 years, David Horton, who seems to be a very good guy, with a curious habit of marking miles long. I think MMTR has 9200 feet in elevation gain, and about 7000 in loss. By east coast standards, the race is rather remote, traveling north through the middle of the George Washington National Forest, point to point. Some places just might be banjo country. My Dad, who accompanied me to the race, said it took him an hour to drive from one aid station to another at one point. MMTR is one of the most beautiful races I’ve done, because of the amazing red, green, yellow, and brown colors of the fall foliage, which cover hill after hill, throughout the race. Simply amazing, compelling smiles throughout the day.
-
MMTR has a lot of history, and you can tell that it has developed a family of supporters, both with participants and volunteers. Great pre- and post-race dinners, with many laughs. I really enjoyed the sweet tea, the grits, the southern accents. The dinners sort of reminded me of the annual rendevouses that Rocky Mountain trappers used to have in the 1830s, where trappers would come from all over to trade furs, share stories, eat, and party together.
-
This run has 16 aid stations in total, I believe—one bottle will do it. As you enter into each aid station, a sign lists the cutoff times, and so I was constantly doing the math in my head, figuring out where I was, and what I needed to do to increase my gap over the 12 hour pace cutoff. I figured I’d crash later, and the cutoffs are tough---the finisher rate this year was 72%.
-
I found the course to be very runnable, not that I chose to do so all the time. The first 7 miles or so are on the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway (a National Park, I believe), and then after that the course shifts to old logging type roads, mostly. The race starts in the dark---I saw a shooting star during the first 6 or 7 miles, and watched the sun rise over the James River, with trees reflected in it. Wide temperature variations—cold in the morning, warm in the afternoon. Once you hit the trails, there are creeks to rock hop, and puddles to jump. The second half of the course is substantially more challenging than the first half, in terms of elevation profile. Mile 22 to Mile 29 is a steady climb up Buck Mountain (which rhymes with schucks), and after that there are still several other sharp climbs. Placards with inspirational bible verses, along with Rocky music, are near the summit aid stations. The pitch on the climbs is rarely knock-your-socks-off steep, but the climbs are steady. Also, during the second half, the trail turns into single track more frequently, with significant leaf cover over ankle rolling rocks. It’s fun. Seriously.
-
As for me, I started slow, and then began picking things up around the 3rd hour. I rather enjoyed the climbs—I’ve been doing lots of hills this year---and so I just pushed hard through them, doing ok, and enjoying the fall colors and the good spirits all around. My wheels came off a bit, though, when the sun came out in the early afternoon. I don’t do well with sun. I dragged tail through “the loop,” a single track trail somewhere b/w mile 30 and 40. I soldiered on. The final 3.5 miles were downhill, and at that point, I found a little bit of something, and just let gravity pull me in, right under 11 hours. I’m happy with my run—my only goals were to beat the cutoffs and finish, while checking out the Appalachian scenery.
-
The race was MOST special for me because my Dad participated, traveling from aid station to aid station, helping me out, and seeing what I’m into. He lives in Virginia, and so I don’t get to share this with him—the trails, the community, the life, and I feel he got a real sense of it last weekend. For this reason alone, this race will always hold a special place in my heart.
-
FN: New RD Clark Zealand and everyone else did an exceptional job with this race! It’s particularly cool to see how the race has gone techno, with a talking blog, sortable finishing stats, many race photos, great shirts, great race hotel, etc., etc. I expect I’ll be back, for this one, or maybe for one of the other many interesting races down this way.
-

Check out the fall colors

Approximately Mile 32

Mile 41, but really Mile 43 or so?

Done!....for now!

(All photos courtesy of Dad)

Appomattox & D-Day

-

After USMC and Harper's Ferry, my Dad and I made our way down to southern Virginia, and visited the Appomattox National Park and the National D-Day Memorial. Appommattox is where Lee surrendered to Grant, and the Civil War ended. Though coincidental, it seems fitting to post pics of my visit last week to this place, in light of Obama's election. And I like them. You can go in the McClean house, where terms of surrender were negotiated, and they had an in character Rebel soldier actor describe the events leading to the conclusion of the War. The other photos are of the D-Day Memorial, which is in Bedford, Virginia, located there in large part to honor the Bedford Boys, locals, who were a big part of the storming of Omaha Beach on D-Day, most of whom died charging the beach. I'm not a real war buff--that's more my Dad, and yet I found both places quite moving, though in different ways.

Marine Corps Marathon

-

I did so much in Virginia over the past 10 days or so, that I think I'm going to toss up a few posts. Starting with the USMC Marathon. The pics tell the story--lots of sites to see, big crowd. The marathon was fun, my second one. I started late--it took me at least ten minutes just to cross the starting line. Once I got going, it was a dodge and swerve thing, jogging mostly, through a cattleherd, stopping to take lots of pictures, and to pass out campaign literature. I had no intention on taking this race seriously. I called home, which the folks got a kick out of--"No one's ever called us during a marathon!!!"--well...imagine that! There I go, representing in the gene pool. My biggest regret is I didn't stop at the hot dog or falafel stands. One of my favorite race stories is buying fried chicken at a corner store with my friend Steve and eating it during Bloomsday, circa 1992. That was cool. This was one of those races. DC is made for it, with so many great sites to see. I ran the final ten miles or so, to keep my time under 4:30, b/c something in me refused to commit to the really large time. Whatever, I still hurt afterwards, and I am officially not into pavement much anymore.