Races – Page 3 – O'er the Hills

Pizza?? Nom Nom Nom!

Today I ran the 2013 NYC Pizza Run in Tompkins Square Park, in Manhattan’s East Village. My official race time was 17:33, which equated to 6th place overall and 5th place among males.

Here are my unofficial Garmin stats:

The weather for this race was pretty good: about 69 degrees at the 11am-ish start with 75% humidity. I didn’t really even think of the weather so that was a good thing.

The course is four loops around the park, starting at the midpoint of the south side. The race is advertised as 2.25 miles, though my Garmin tells me it is closer to 2 miles, logging 1.96 miles. At the end of your first, second, and third loops (where the race began), you eat a slice of pizza and can’t move on until it is fully in your mouth. When you run your final loop, you curve slightly into the park past the people still eating and across the finish line.

You are allowed one bottle of water provided by the race. (Not sure if you could bring your own beverage — seems it could be cheating if you’re competitive!) Turns out this water supply was pretty crucial for getting down the pizza, provided this year by Certé. The pizza, running I think about eight decent slices per pie, had cooled by the time we ate it. The crust was the surprise element to the race: It was handtossed and thin, but about an inch or two wide. This equated to a large dry “rind” of pizza to consume against the wetter, cheese-and-tomato sauce portion of the pizza. What did this mean in terms of the race? Well, when you are cramming a slice into your mouth, you are going to have a pretty tough time getting the slice down your throat without choking on toasted dough! Also, since it was dry, it wasn’t as easy to push it into the mouth, meaning you really had to chew to get the slice in the mouth. The crust was probably the biggest obstacle of the whole race, and I heard several finishers talking about it in the end.

I was having visions that I might actually have a chance of winning this race, so I decided to think about strategy a bit in case it would mean the difference in a first-place or other-place finish. Some of the things I told myself included:

Take my time in the first lap because speed will matter more toward the end
The race will probably be won more in the pizza station than in the running
Get water at the end of the 1st lap to help with swallowing issues I sometimes have when I eat (gotta have something to drink when I have pancakes else I panic when the food stops in my esophagus!)
Move toward the front of the pizza station so that I can take off immediately when I leave
Store up some sprinting for the last loop
At 2.25 miles, each lap is a little over a half mile, so at a decent pace each lap might take me three to three-and-a-half minutes to run
Grab smaller slices if available, especially in the last pizza station

These tips definitely came in handy, but I never could have planned for the pizza factor. After my first lap, I forewent the bottle of water (more like, I forgot it) and went straight to the slice. It was definitely something that would take a bit of time to consume, but the crust was the hard part. Being dry, it wasn’t as easy to eat. I reached the first station around 5th place I think, ahead of the woman who would eventually beat me. I was a little discouraged when I saw the very fast eventual 1st-place winner get out of the pizza station so quickly, while I was suffering to get through my dry crust. The woman also shot out quickly, and it looked as if I wouldn’t able to catch them given the amount of time this was taking me. Rather than waste time swallowing, I decided to take off once my slice was completely in my mouth.

This meant my second lap was scary. How scary? Well, imagine running with a full mouth of food. Doesn’t sound scary? Well, then imagine that bits of that food ball in your mouth are dry bits of bread, so that when you inhale, sometimes the dry bits shoot into your windpipe and make you choke. And I do mean “choke”! I was repeatedly so close to vomiting not out of nausea but out of food-down-the-windpipe that 3/4 the way through the second lap I pulled alongside Ave. A to projectile vomit … or so I thought! The cough I let out seemed to free the last jarring bits of remnant pizza in my mouth and I was able to make it to the pizza station for a second time.

And that’s about right: Just as I was swallowing the last bits of pizza from the prior pizza station, I was arriving at the pizza station AGAIN! Funny how that times out. This second time I definitely got my bottle of water and used it to get the dry crust down my throat faster. I heard (though can’t confirm) that the winner was actually drinking water before eating to whet/wet the throat a bit. Not sure, but overall water is definitely a valuable assistant. That third loop’s food ball crammed in my mouth wasn’t affecting my breathing as much and I wasn’t choking as much either. I wasn’t running too fast for this loop — perhaps a mix of knowing I’m not going to win or just consuming this pizza without choking — but I still was making decent time relative to the other runners.

The third time I hit the pizza station (or was it the second?), I confessed to the reporter who I believe was Madeleine Cummings that I had been choking and water was my strategy for next year. Eventually I got out of the station, and knowing this was my last lap, I ran in hopes of passing people and guarding against being passed. There were no real rivals on my tail from what I could tell, but as I made the final turn onto 7th St., I saw a runner ahead of me who had been near my pace at the beginning. This is the part of the race when I turn on my sprinting and I certainly did, having to dodge not only him (I’m guessing he finished 7th overall) but also the few spectators who’d lined the sidewalk to watch. The crew wrote down my number as I crossed the finish line and they logged 17:33.

It was a fun, different, somewhat disgusting, but definitely challenging way to race! I’m thrilled I got to do it after wanting to do it for about two years now and not being able to. At the end, people are flecked with pizza sauce in various places on their bodies, with some smaller people clutching stomachs from eating so much. Myself, I wasn’t nauseated by it; I just had a sore throat from the coughing and choking. Not a big deal or any reason not to do this — though definitely drink water with your pizza!!!

On Twitter: @BenHauck

Well, That Happened!

A Race! Boston Marathon 2013

8:19s | 26.2 miles | 42~48°F

Today I ran the 2013 Boston Marathon. I completed it in 3:37:59 (8:19s). Definitely not one of my faster marathons, but at least I got to finish!

I’m actually writing this entry on Sunday, April 21, 2013, and backdating it. I’ve just gotten around to writing it, after a tumultuous week of news surrounding the tragic events that happened about an hour and ten minutes after I finished the marathon. So some of the information in this entry may seem futuristic relative to the publication date.

Official Stats per BAA.org

Bib No. 5653 (Wave 1, Corral 6)

Splits:

5k	10k	15k	20k	Half	25k	30k	35k	40k
0:22:45	0:46:22	1:09:30	1:33:41	1:38:46	1:58:10	2:25:12	2:53:22	3:24:45

Finish:

Pace	Projected Time	Official Time	Overall	Gender	Division
0:08:19	3:37:59	3:37:59	10638	7608	3242

Unofficial Stats per my Garmin 610

The day started off with relatively ideal conditions. It was mostly cloudy but the sun was peeking out. It was cool but not too cold, with a forecast for the race to get up to about 56 degrees — optimal for me. I was at the runner’s village with Elizabeth Corkum, who was also running it, set to pace her friend and running teammate Cip. They weren’t able to rendezvous at the village because of poor cell phone signal and low cell battery, but eventually found themselves in the corral. Elizabeth’s more remarkable stories of the day are here: Ode to Boston | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

I wasn’t feeling all that great this morning, which is generally a good thing for me in terms of racing because I tend to do fairly well when I feel bad in the morning. It was mostly a less than comfortable feeling in my digestive system but nothing that really terrified me. I wasn’t sure how I’d race today. I had not really put much strategy into the race this time, relying mostly on my 2011 Boston Marathon experience when I ran 3:15:16 (7:27s). I did not think I would achieve that level of performance this year; instead, I estimated I’d finish around a 3:25.

I ended up in Corral 6 in the first wave, which started at 10am. My impromptu strategy this time was to do a bit of research: I recalled how fast these first miles leaving Hopkinton could be, even without effort, so I decided I would run slowly out of the gate to see what that might do for my later effort. This included slapping kids’ hands on the right side of the course, which I thought would help to slow me down a bit. In my first miles I was mostly in the mid-7:10s without much effort, with a couple of slowdowns when I took a bathroom break during the 4th mile and stopped to loosen my laces in the 5th mile after having an intensifying tingling sensation in my left foot. The sensation didn’t relent so I decided I’d just see if I could deal with it while running and see if it would go away. It eventually did — I think sometime during the 10th or 11th mile. (I wondered if hydrating myself had any impact in the tingling going away because the loosened laces didn’t seem to help!)

My pace started to slow around the 8th mile, going into 7:20s territory and then quickly moving up past 7:30s up to an 8:00 for my 15th mile. During this time, I ticked off one of my things to do : get a kiss from a Wellesley girl or two. I found a spot where I thought I could get kissed on both cheeks by two girls. I got one kiss and quickly left. It was only after then that I realized that it was more the point to kiss a Wellesley girl than by kissed by one. Darn! Well, maybe I’ll try next time.

Once I ran 16 miles, I saw the game change for me. In my most recent training runs, I’d been able to get my 16-mile runs down to close to two hours, and here I was hitting that just about on the button, just a few seconds to maybe a minute slower than that pace. But from this point I realized that’s when things will get really tough with this race (what with the Newton Hills just ahead, plus the challenging last 10K), so I wasn’t expecting myself to hold to that pace, especially since my recent training had tapered too soon quite accidentally from being trapped in an unrelenting work schedule. Sure enough, it was after this point that my splits changed from sub-8:00s to ultra-8:00s, ultra-9:00s, and even ultra-10:00s! (There was one notable exception on the fast and exhilarating downhill off of Heartbreak Hill when I ran a 7:53.)

As far as the Newton Hills, the first one seemed the longest. The next two are a bit of a blur, with the downhills of these three seeming quite long. If I’d had more energy for these hills, I might have tried to shave off some time on these downhills. The fourth and final hill, Heartbreak Hill, indeed starts at the traffic light with a little bump, and concludes at a curve where I think there’s another traffic light. I was crawling along but didn’t stop. It was really fun getting some energy back on the long downhill out of Heartbreak Hill.

The Citgo sign is a welcome sight implying that you’re really close to the finish. You see it from a bit back then you don’t … and then you do. This second time you see it is more promising. However, there is a highway overpass of a very steep grade at this point in the race (steep to me at this point, that is!), so that’s to be remembered. From 2011, I remembered how hard all of the remaining hills were to me but this time they were a little less difficult except for this one. I was really drained for a lot of this 2013 race at the end. Crawling along in the ultra-9:00s and 10:00s, I wanted to stop but kept myself motivated enough to put one foot in front of the other and by reminding myself I’d only be running about 18-20 minutes more.

Elizabeth’s boyfriend Chris was near the end of the course, so that was also a motivator for me. He didn’t know exactly where he’d be so that was going to be a bit of a challenge for me to pick him out, so I didn’t lose too much energy trying to find him. He was going to be positioned near the underpass inside the last mile — this underpass below Massachusetts Avenue was across the street from our hotel, The Eliot. In the end, I missed Chris, and I continued on toward the Hereford turn and then to Boylston.

On Boylston, I picked up my pace just a bit, with my strategy being to sprint only once I hit the last cross-street, Exeter. I came upon an older man running in front of me whose shirt claimed he was 60 or so, and not wanting him to beat me, I made sure to pick up the pace enough to get by him. When I hit Exeter, I turned on the gas, and I ended up robo-sprinting through the finish line.

Since it was so helpful in 2011, I did the same this year and held the hands of some volunteers while I walked the intersection to get water. I picked up water, Gatorade, a heatsheet, medal, and other nourishment, all moaning a bit with my calves really aching. Once I accumulated all of my stuff, I decided to rest my legs a bit by stepping each one at a time on the lower rail of a security gate, with a volunteer making sure I was okay. I was, though I was aching. I then made my way over to the buses to get my bag, then off to the family reunion area. At some point I called Chris to triangulate with him. I decided to head over to his general area on Massachusetts and Commonwealth.

The route wasn’t as direct as it could be because of the road closures, so I hacked my way a bit in our hotel’s general direction. I ended up being near the finish so I turned down I believe Exeter and ended up very near the finish line. I was walking along the south part of the race, right in front of Lord & Taylor. It was in front of Lord & Taylor that I encountered a disturbing mass of people, pretty much sealed in like sardines with almost no room to move. The sidewalk was packed with about 3-6 rows of people watching, with only about two rows of people getting by near the wall of the store — and they were hardly moving. We would take babysteps every few seconds. I had two thoughts around this time: 1) if a bomb went off here it wouldn’t be pretty, and 2) why are there not police officers regulating the flow of people here? It was definitely unsafe. Where I was ended up being I believe diagonal from each of the bombs that were to go off minutes later.

Eventually I freed myself from the pedestrian traffic and made my way along Boylston. Lots of “Congratulations!” were uttered to me as I’d walked from the family reunion area, and they continued even to this point. I reached Hereford and all this time I’d been looking to see if I’d see Elizabeth and Cip finishing, but given what Chris had said about their time I figured it would still be a while. I thought about turning down the west side of Hereford but there looked to be so many people, I didn’t really want to endure navigating another mass of people. So I kept going along Boylston until I got to Massachusetts Ave., and I saw Chris waiting for me at Commonwealth.

We talked outside the hotel there at the corner for a bit. Chris said Elizabeth and Cip had just passed by, and sure enough soon after we got simultaneous text messages alerting us that they’d finished. It must have been three minutes later that we heard an enormous boom. I only remember one boom, but Chris remembered two. I looked to the police officers there who were regulating traffic and they seemed to look at each other, but we all carried on a moment later as if that-was-that. While it did sound like an explosion, I didn’t know the city very well so I figured it must have been loud sound on a construction site or something. It sounded like a dump truck hitting a pothole, which is a very loud sound. However, it sounded about ten times louder than that.

Chris went off to grab some lunch and I went up to the hotel room. Chris had left the TV on and I was watching The Talk on CBS and nourishing myself when suddenly breaking news came out. That sound I’d heard indeed was an explosion. In fact, it was at the marathon. Early reports were of limbs. It didn’t sit well. I first thought it must have been some tragic explosion of an oxygen tank at a medical tent. It wasn’t long before I realized it was something else.

Eventually I got a call from Elizabeth from Cip’s phone. Elizabeth hadn’t been able to reach Chris and since her cell phone battery was dead she had to use her friend’s phone. She said she had just finished about three minutes prior and had to run away. She was definitely in a state of excitation and I remained calm and asked her to remain calm. I figured it was all over — of course I didn’t know but I didn’t doubt that. She explained that the route back to our hotel was cut off now, so she would go to Cip’s hotel near Boston Common (the other side of the finish line from us) where she could also recharge her phone. Chris, who’d just gotten Elizabeth a burrito, was with me before he decided he’d see if he could walk over to her hotel to get her. He did, and meanwhile I got out messages that I was safe to those I knew who knew I was running. I did that nearly the entire time Chris was gone, when he came back with Elizabeth.

It is about there that my story ends. The only eerie thing for me is that I was on Boylston minutes before the explosions, but I just don’t recall how long before. I’m guessing it was about ten minutes before. The next eerie thing — I described as “chilling” — happened to me two days later when news got out that they had footage of one of the bombers laying down a backpack … footage taken from Lord & Taylor. When I heard Lord & Taylor mentioned, it hit me a bit since I’d been there. I remembered how packed it was, how some people were standing inside the glass entrance presumably out of the crowds, and how empty the store seemed despite being, I believe, open.

I ended up fixating on the news, staying in bed all day Friday from about 6:50am until the capture of the second suspect late that night. I was interested in the news. I don’t think I was traumatized by the events, but the last two nights (Friday and Saturday) I’ve dreamt of bombings and even a bombing at a race. I think that must be more from the impression of the news than the actual events, but I can’t be sure. I’ve had some other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder but I don’t really think I exhibit the condition, just more a confluence of things in my life coming together around the same time as this. We’ll have to see how this continues to unfold.

So that was much of my 2013 Boston Marathon experience. Wild. Marathoners in the last five months have been through a lot. From the cancellation of the 2012 NYC Marathon and the bad blood toward marathoners Hurricane Sandy sponsored, to the bombings of the 2013 Boston Marathon and the support its marathoners got, such an apolitical activity as marathoning seems to have become political. I’m hoping it’s only a blip in the history of marathoning and that marathoning can get back to its normalcy. Before the bombings, marathoning had long had a symbolic value, but after these bombings its symbolic value has increased manifold.

To see photographs from my 2013 Boston Marathon, click here.

To read an article from the Times Ledger in which I was interviewed about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, click here.

For a second article appearing in the Times Ledger, along with some photographs I provided, click here.

A Charming Third Time

This morning I ran the Philadelphia Marathon 2012. It was my fourth running of this decidedly fun race. I completed the marathon in 3:16:02 (7:29s). While not a PR in this fast, flat course, the race was the end of my feat to run three marathons in four weeks. I did it!

Here are my unofficial results per my Garmin:

I really wasn’t sure what would happen in today’s race. Four weeks ago I ran the Atlantic City Marathon in 3:15:14, a time about 10 minutes faster than I had expected. Two weeks ago, I ran the NYC Replacement Marathon in 3:38 — it was actually an ultramarathon of 26.6 miles. Between then and today’s race, I did only two runs — a half-marathon training run and a 10k training run. Based on some prior history of running NYC then Philly with little training between them, I thought there was a good chance that my Philly would end up really slow. I surprised myself.

With the hope of pulling off a 3:25, I relaxed in the beginning of the race. I only had to run 7:49s to pull off that goal, so when I shot out of the gate running around a 6:40-6:50 without much effort, I was a bit surprised and knew I needed to calm down. I remembered seeing some portajohns Saturday and the course ran past them, so I hopped off the course and into a portable toilet. I lost maybe 30-45 seconds, managing a 7:28 first mile according to Garmin (I thought it was a 7:49??). Now without the urge to pee, I was comfortable and running, without pushing myself to go too fast. I remembered the course fairly well and knew there were places I could speed up, but I decided not to.

Instead, I thought I’d hold back until the hill around Mile 8 to turn it on and work. Just before then, I’d been stalking a City Coach runner, whom I’d picked out because of his singlet. Elizabeth trains with the City Coach team so their shirts are distinctive to me. I don’t know the team but I eventually caught him and introduced myself as a friend of Elizabeth’s. His name was Jeff. We chatted a bit (he was running with a guy named Jerry, so we became “Ben and Jerry”!) and I learned he was aiming for a 3:08. I knew I wasn’t going to achieve that today but he dismissed my statement as a lack of confidence. (It wasn’t a lack of confidence; it was a realistic estimate based on my training and history … a 3:08 would have been close to my PR and I wasn’t in that kind of shape.) I ran with Jeff and Jerry before charging up the hill around Mile 8, and I weathered it really well. Around Mile 10 or 11 (near the gel station) Jeff showed up in front of me out of nowhere! I caught up to him then went past him on one of my favorite downhills of the course. It wasn’t until near the half-marathon mark that Jeff passed me then I caught him and we talked as we tried to help Elizabeth (who was in town to watch her boyfriend also race) make ourselves more visible. She wasn’t where I had expected but Jeff and I stayed running together until eventually Elizabeth emerged near the cool old stone underpass on Kelly Drive, cheering us both on.

I ran with Jeff for a bit more. We were doing sub-7:00s at this point, which made me really happy yet I didn’t know how long I’d be able to sustain it. Another guy joined us, too, given our clip. However, inside the 17th mile, something changed for me. I was right there with Jeff when I decided it would be a good time to get some gel in me. Reaching into my pocket meant that I slowed just enough for Jeff to pull in front of me, and as I wrestled a bit with getting the gel into my mouth, Jeff was 90 feet or more ahead of me. My body wasn’t responding as much now to my impulses to catch Jeff, and sure enough I managed a whopping 7:22 in this mile. Whoa! I went from running about a 7:00 to a 7:22! I figured here was the shift in my race and maybe that I’d hit the wall.

Sure enough, my body was starting to slow in the 17th mile. My times started to climb but I knew I could get all the way out to Manayunk. I was pretty confident I could get out of Manayunk. I was even confident I could finish this race, though I wasn’t sure how much I would end up slowing. I remembered that the going out on Kelly Drive is long. Did it feel as long going back toward the finish line? I couldn’t remember but I figured it would feel long. Fortunately, it wasn’t that bad.

With about 4 miles to go, I had a caffeinated gel. In fact, I had two — one 2x-caffeine Tangerine PowerGel and one raspberry Clif Shot of unknown caffeine level. I’ve avoided running with much of any caffeine since a hot summer run left me with a racing heart, which made me feel really weird and knocked me out of the training run. However, I was curious if I’d get a needed boost to the finish line with the caffeine. I didn’t have the heart palpitations, yet I did have some increase in speed. Or rather, when I wanted to turn it on a bit more and get to the finish line, my body output some increase in speed.

With 2 miles to go, I talked to a guy named John. John told me a secret about his race (he was running with a buddy’s number, I believe), and he said that people were calling him by the name on his bib rather than his name. We connected a bit and encouraged each other in keeping it going to the finish. Eventually I pulled ahead of him and he wished me well. And then the speed really started to pick up for me.

A girl in fluorescent running clothes rivaled me. She sped up much too soon for the finish, which is really hard to gauge in this race. I think I caught her, only to have her eventually pull ahead of me. I was really starting to charge to find the finish, with tears welling up in my eyes in a fit of emotion. Eventually I saw the 26-mile marker, which I wasn’t confident I’d see. I knew that after seeing that, it’s about 2 minutes until the finish. I found the finish and charged ahead. And then I finished. 3:16:02 — just shy of running a 3:15. If I didn’t have the pee break, I might have run in the 3:15 range, but honestly, the having-to-pee would have drained my concentration, and that early break from running actually may have helped me out a bit.

After the race, I saw Elizabeth’s boyfriend Chris, who pulled off his first ever sub-4:00 marathon, running about a 3:57. I saw Elizabeth, too, but then I was on my way back to my hotel. I noticed a limp in my right knee had started to develop, most likely delayed onset inflammation of some sort. At worst I feared it was a cartilage tear but I’m thinking that’s not it for now, and that the inflammation will go down soon enough. My guess right now is that it’s a bit of inflammation of the IT band since the pain is a bit on the lateral (“outside”) part of the knee.

I slept a lot of the train ride back to NYC. I’m pretty happy with my accomplishment of three marathons in four weeks, even if I didn’t do them as quickly as I had originally hoped. Training for them was extremely tough for me this year. I didn’t have the luck this year of consistent stand-in gigs, so I was hacking together a work schedule among different productions, meaning my sleep was erratic and my runs couldn’t always work out. Many times I just didn’t run, too defeated by the stress of early calltimes and extremely early risings, and too wiped out at the end of the day to do anything about it. This goal makes me long a bit more for training for a single marathon again, though quite honestly I need a bit of a break from running after this experience. Running was enjoyable to an extent, but I would do whatever I could at times to delay my going for a run. I think it was my body rebelling against the goals I’d set forth for myself. I also had a book come out in this time, and the erratic nature of promoting it also wore on me, as did general life pursuits. This huge running goal is largely behind me now, thank goodness.

And I did it!