Great Greenbrier River Race 2015

Team Hill and Holler took 1st place for coed teams!

I didn't get to do this race last year because it fell on the same weekend as the Blue Ridge 1/2 Marathon.  This race is always the last Saturday in April, and Blue Ridge is always the weekend before, except for last year, for whatever reason.  I did this race on the Hill and Holler team in 2012 and 2013 though.  In 2012, Merrick, Jeremiah, and I took first place "male" team.  They had signed up with a different runner, but got me to fill in at the last minute.  In 2013, we got 2nd place coed team.  This year, I let Merrick know that I wanted to run on a team again.  But he didn't want to bike, and we needed a new kayaker.  So I found a friend who kayaks, and we recruited Stu from Hill and Holler to be our cyclist.  Basically, we put together a team of the fastest people we knew for each part of the race.  We planned on crushing the competition.  And we didn't disappoint ourselves.  

race face

a/k/a "get out of my face with the camera" face

The 5k run of this race is really annoying.  They used to let the solo participants go first, and then the teams 5 minutes later.  It was always a problem, because the faster team runners would catch up to the slower solo runners, on a narrow out-and-back trail, and then the fast runners have to weave in and out of slow people while trying not to block the faster solo runners who are coming back the opposite direction.  This year, they let the male solos go first, then 5 minutes later the female solos, and then all the team runners 5 minutes later.  What. A. Mess.  It might have been worse than when they had two waves.  I jumped into second place team within minutes, and soon after that began encountering the slow solo people.  Many of them were walking in groups, which made them even harder to get around.  The further I got, the more crowded the trail was.  And then the fastest solo runners started coming head-on.  It was quite annoying, as I was running as hard as I could, and did not appreciate having to break my stride so much.  

Since I've started using the HR monitor, I've never seen more than a minute in Z5.  

But somehow I spent 7+ minutes in Z5 in this race.  

So even though it's not my fastest 5k ever...apparently I was working hard!

I ended up finishing the run in 19:46, with only one guy ahead of me.  I had no idea if he was part of a male or coed team, but either way, we were in pretty good standing.  I high-fived Mallory, and she jumped in her kayak and headed down the river.  

Did I mention that it was raining and in the 40s?  What a miserable day. 

Eventually, our team finished and I learned that a few teams had passed Mallory on the river, but that Stu had passed a bunch of teams on the bike.  So we knew we had at least finished top 3.  We were all cold, wet, and miserable, but we wanted to stay for awards in case we won, so we stayed.  The race had started at 11, they finally got to the awards around 2:30.  It seemed like they were saving our category for last.  They went through male solos, female solos, masters, seniors, male teams, female teams, finally they got to us.  We were ecstatic to find out that we had won!  

Beckley Half-Marathon 2014 : Jogging for the win?

Go big or go home. 

Obnoxious tights are the new race-winner.

It's all about the bright blue/green/teal.

I had every intention of not being competitive during this race.  I knew it would be hard, but I was hoping I'd be able to focus on keeping my lungs breathing, and not on passing everyone possible.

I have officially broken my no-watch-during-races rule.  I am loving being able to track my runs on Strava, and since this is my first race after 5+ months off, I really wanted to be able to see what happened between the start and finish lines.  And of course I will want to be able to analyze every race from now on...  But I think it will be fine.  I had good reasons for racing without a watch for awhile, but I think I've gotten familiar enough with my own running not to let it hurt my races anymore.  I've gotten used to running by feel.  I will admit that sometimes during the race yesterday when I glanced at my pace, I wanted to speed up, but I never actually sped up without first assessing whether or not I thought my body could handle it.  And I never ended up in trouble, so I guess it worked!

I started out "jogging" when the gun went off.  It felt slow and relaxed.  My watch may have been clocking me at a pace that looked dangerously close to 6:30, but it was downhill, and I felt really relaxed, so I let it go.  I was near the front of the pack, and there were two girls in front of me, but I wasn't worried about it.  I wasn't about to start racing them in the first mile.  I gradually gained on, and passed, one of them in the first mile.  It took longer to creep up on the other, but I passed her somewhere around the 3rd or 4th mile.  It sounded like she stayed pretty close to me for awhile.  At one point, I thought for sure she was going to pass me, but she didn't.  Eventually, I got tired of hearing her footsteps behind me, so I sped up a little bit, and then I never heard her again.

For the first half of the race, I made sure I was keeping my pace relaxed and my breathing deep and even.  I was moving along at a good pace, and I was feeling strong.  Once I passed the halfway point and was still doing well, I let myself gradually pick up the pace.  As each mile went by without any trouble breathing, I got more confident and pushed a little bit harder.  During the last 2-3 miles, I had no idea if anybody was going to overtake me, and I knew that if someone passed me, I would not be able to keep up with them.  But of course I was hoping that no one would pass me, and that I would be able to hold my lead.  Because why wouldn't I want to defend my title from last year?!

Turns out, I could have slowed down in the last mile or two and still won.  But I didn't.  Or not on purpose at least.  When I crossed the finish line, my watch only had me at 12.9 miles, so I jogged around the parking lot until it hit a little bit over 13.1.

Overall, I am super happy with how the race went.  It felt good to finally get out there and race again, and I am pretty proud of myself for running a smart race and not going out too fast or ever running out of oxygen.  My official finish time was 1:32:53.  Significantly slower than last year's 1:28:20, and also the slowest time I've ever run on that course, but after taking a summer off, I'd say it's pretty good!  This race was a great trial run for me to see how I handle the distance, since it's a pretty easy course.  Now I can look forward to the tougher Lewisburg course!

I did start coughing up a lung as soon as I switched from a jog to a walk, but I'm going to blame the cold air for that.  It was in the mid-low 50s throughout the race, and since I'm still not acclimated to cold(er) weather, it felt even colder than that.  At least my lungs keep working while I'm running and don't try to die until after I stop...

Last year, I got interviewed by a reporter after the race, and later discovered an awful picture of me crossing the finish line, as well as an article that made me sound like a total snob.  I got interviewed again this year, and was wondering how bad they would make me look/sound this time. Thankfully, there's no picture of me dying on the finish line this year.  I don't think I sound quite as snobby this year...but I still wouldn't say I am very good at interview responses...or maybe the reporter just doesn't try very hard to make people sound articulate.

Beckley Register-Herald

Sandman Extreme 1/2

I believe I have found a new favorite half marathon course.  As an overall race experience, the Blue Ridge still wins, but course-wise...I'm pretty sure this one wins by a landslide.  This course was very gently rolling for the first 1.5 miles or so, then headed up a mountain.  About 2 miles later, the course turns onto a packed dirt/gravel road, which goes 2 miles up to a turn-around.  Then it's back down to the road, where you continue going downhill for awhile, and then the rest of the course is hilly.  There is a long steep hill around mile marker 12, and then some more hills throughout the whole last mile.  The course is challenging for sure, in fact it is the most challenging course hill-wise that I have ever run.  But, since hills are what I'm good at...I loved it.  Especially the looooong up-hill/mountain in the first part of the race.  Some of the stepper downhills were quite painful, but luckily they were short enough for me to manage.

The Sandman 1/2 takes place in Wytheville, VA, which is about a 2 hour drive from Lewisburg.  I was very lucky to have my former running partner be able to come with me and do all the driving!  He was also my photographer and cheering squad for the day.  I knew I would be too tired to drive myself home safely afterwards, so I am eternally grateful to him for helping me out.  And hopefully he will be able to start racing with me again soon!  Then we can go to more races together and split the driving.  And maybe pace each other...

It was snowing when we left Lewisburg at 6:20 AM,  and flurried on and off for much of the drive.  It was also very cold.  There were only about 40 runners at the race.  The temp was in the low 20s, and the wind made it considerably colder.  I didn't want to spend anymore time outside than I had to, so I only "warmed-up" for a minute or two. Just enough to get my legs moving.  And then I bounced around a bunch on the starting line trying not to freeze to death.  The race started with a simple "ready set go" and off we went.  I took the lead in the first 10 seconds or so.  I wasn't going out too strong, but settled into a nice comfortable pace.  A police car led until we got to the bottom of the mountain, and then I was on my own.

I kept a good pace going up the mountain.  I wasn't exactly sure how long I was going to be going up, but I wasn't too worried about it either.  It felt good.  The higher I got, the more snow there was on the ground.  The last mile or more of the dirt road was completely covered in a thin layer of snow.  I had to watch my steps pretty carefully to avoid slipping.  The few times the road hair-pinned enough for me to glance back without really turning around, there was no one in sight.  However, after I turned around at the top, it seemed like I ran past the first 2 guys pretty quickly.  I thought for sure they would catch up to me on the downhill.  But, I never saw either of them again until after they finished the race a few minutes behind me.  Turns out, they don't like downhills any more than I do.

Once off the dirt road and back on pavement, there was a really steep downhill that was pretty painful to pound down.  The race had 2 options; the half marathon, or a 9 mile option that skipped the 4 miles on dirt road.  I started passing 9 mile runners around my mile 9 or so.  The wind got really brutal in the last 3 miles of the race.  I hadn't had too much trouble with the cold, but when the wind picked up, my fingers froze and started hurting.  My face was hurting too.  Muscle-wise, my legs felt great throughout the race.  My feet and hips were taking a beating though.  My feet because of the uneven dirt road (I run on pavement so often, they are really not conditioned for uneven terrain), and my hips from the downhill pounding.

coming up the hill after mile 12

Jim was standing here, cheering me on. 

And telling me that the entire last mile was uphill, but this was the steepest part.

When I crossed the finish line (1:34:29), there was one race official, and one reporter with a camera.  They asked which race I had completed.  When I said I did the half marathon, the reporter told me I had to go back and run across the finish line again so he could get my picture for the newspaper.  I really just wanted to go inside and thaw...but I complied and walked a little ways back up the road, and then ran across the line again.  Then they let me go inside and warm up.

This is the 3rd half marathon that I have won, but I still haven't won one that actually involved competition.  It's also the first half marathon that I won for both genders.  Pretty exciting, but someday I want to win a half marathon that is actually competitive!

The trophy is an hourglass...with purple sand!

1st place guy told me I should use it to time track workouts.

Jim told me to use it for a drinking game...that sounds more fun. 

I expect it will just be another trophy on the shelf though.

I am looking forward to running this course again next year, but I am desperately hoping that it is at least slightly warmer next year!  And, I hope there are more people next year.  It was really lonely out there by myself for the entire race!