DrT - Low Carb Runner

My Breakfast - 1000 calories

2011-10-28T11:23:00.001-04:00

Here is a typical breakfast for me:

Two eggs (large, fried with olive oil)
Sunflower seeds (mixed with the eggs)
Hard cheese (usually Parmesan) melted between the eggs
Two cups of green vegetables
Some broccoli, carrots, etc, added to the salad
Two tablespoons of oil and some vinegar
Cottage cheese (quarter to half cup)
Bacon (two slices)
Almonds (I usually eat these while I prepare breakfast)

Total calories: 1000

Composition (thanks to Fitday.com):

Fat: 75g (70%)
Carbs: 24g (10%)
Protein: 50g (20%)

Perfect ratios! :)

Sometimes immediately after this, or for midmorning snack. I make a cup or two of hot chocolate. I mix unsweetened cocoa (one tablespoon) with some brown sugar, heavy cream, cinnamon, and maybe a bit of vanilla and/or orange extract. Plus, I have half a cup of Fage 2% yogurt. Total of 500 calories.

So, by 12 noon I have consumed 1500 calories. Then another 1000 calories for lunch. And about 500 calories for dinner, 3000 calories total.

I eat something similar (eggs and salad) before every race, including my last two marathons. Seems to be working well.

Towpath Marathon 2011 - Race Report

2011-10-09T21:05:00.001-04:00

Towpath Marathon (Oct. 9, 2011)

The Towpath 5K was my first race in 2002. I have run an event in this race since then:

- 2002: 5K (my first race ever!) - 21:27
- 2003: Marathon Relay
- 2004: My first marathon! (3:55)
- 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008: Marathons (3:36 best time in 2006)
- 2009, 2010: Half Marathon (I ran the Athens Marathon that was close)

My goal this year was to improve my 3:36 best course time.

Yesterday I carbo-loaded by taking my wife out for dinner. My total carbs for the day amounted to 150 g (nutrition experts recommend 600 g before a race). The morning of the race (today) I had what could be called "a nutritional nightmare" before a marathon: eggs with bacon, cheese, olive oil, nuts. Total of 680 calories, 67% fat, 8% carbs (15g – vs. 400 g recommended by the experts). Yikes!

I laced my New Balance Minimus shoes and decided to run without jacket & gloves (at 52F), but held my bottle (with home-made orange juice) and my 3d camera. Here are a couple of pictures that I took before the race started.

Right away I found myself running at 7:30 pace. First 6 miles: 7:33, 7:33, 7:46, 7:50, 7:45, 7:39. This pace felt comfortable. I found myself running with some guys that I knew could not keep up this pace.

My next 10 miles were in extremely even pace. I was running like a well-oiled machine :) averaging 7:45 min/mile: 7:40, 7:42, 7:44, 7:46, 7:47, 7:48, 7:41, 7:42, 7:42, 7:40.

I passed the half mark at 1:41:15. A quick calculation convinced me that I had the 3:35 in the bag, so to speak, and maybe I have a shot for 3:30 if I didn’t slow down a lot.

At mile 17 my legs started feeling tired. My pace slowed from 7:40 to 8:00 min/mile: 7:49, 7:54, 8:03, 7:58, 8:02, 7:57, 8:03, 8:05. It took a lot of determination to maintain this pace. But everyone else was slowing too, as the temperature rose to 70F. I was passing runner after runner, those who had passed me earlier.

As I am approaching Red Lock, with only 2 miles left, I was trying to figure out if I had a chance to finish at 3:25. This would be a -5 BQ. I made an effort to speed up. Mile 25 is 7:57. Mile 26 is 7:26, which is the fastest mile so far in the race.

My Garmin watch shows that after mile 26, I had 0.4 miles to go, instead of 0.1 (it was running slow). At this point I was flying. I am always running faster when I get closer to the end of a long race, but now I was trying to achieve a goal of 3:23

My time at this last 0.4 mile was 6:43!!

I crossed the line at 3:25:08 according to the race clock. My chip time was 3:25:02.

Wow! What a great effort! I beat my previous course record by 11 minutes and ran faster than the Akron marathon 2 weeks ago, by 10 minutes. As a matter of fact, this is the 3rd fastest marathon out of 17 (the other two are 3:19 and 3:22 in Cleveland 2010 and 2009). Next year, I am definitely going for a PR in Cleveland (my favorite course)! Here is a picture of me at the finish, and a picture of my wife who finished the Half Marathon at 2:06, a good time for her.

After the race we went home, cleaned and changed and then went back for the awards. No awards for us this year. I finished 7th/49 in my age group. It is interesting that if I were I the next age group, I would have finished first. We then went to Bob Evans for some real food.

Runners: Is Low-Carb for you?

2011-10-08T22:15:00.000-04:00

Answer these two questions:

Are you satisfied with your current weight or would you like to lose 5-10 lbs?
Are you satisfied with your running? Does it feel strong? Are you enjoying it or does it feel like a drag (especially the long runs)?

If you answered “yes” to both questions then you are fine. Whatever you are doing is working. Keep it up. If you answered “no” to both questions, then you should consider a low-carb diet and see how it works for you. I know that this is going against everything that you've read in the mainstream running books and web sites, but how do these “experts” know what is good for you personally?

Jan, in the running list said something about not having time to read a book on low-carb or something about a low-carb cookbook. The beauty of low-carb nutrition for me is that you do not need to read anything, or cook in any special way. All you need to do is eliminate high carb foods: Bread, wheat & flour, pasta, rice, sugar & sweets, potatoes. Eat fruits, nuts, dairy, in moderation. Eat lots of eggs, meat/fish, oil, vegetables. Drink plenty of water.

Most people on a low-carb nutrition typically start the day eating eggs for breakfast (no bread, milk, cereal). I make a two egg omelet cooked with olive oil (or butter) and eat some cheese and vegetables. I might add bacon or sausage. For lunch, try a large salad (with lots of olive oil) and a 4-6 oz piece of meat or fish (tuna, salmon). Again, no bread, crackers, etc. Same for dinner. For snacks you can have nuts (almonds are better than peanuts), cheese, yogurt (regular, not low-fat or no-fat), a piece of fruit.

Avoid processed foods. Avoid foods labeled "low fat". Check the ingredients on anything with a label and avoid foods that are high in carbs, or with sugar and derivatives (high fructose syrup, etc.) listed as ingredients. For fun, or education, keep a log of what you eat to see how you are doing. I have been entering my food in fitday.com, but there are other sites too. Standard low-carb diet advice is to only monitor your grams of carbs and keep them under 20 (very strict), under 50 (strict, that's how I think I started) or under 100 (more liberal, this is where I am about now). Experts recommend to subtract fiber from carbs to get net carbs, which is what really counts.

Allow yourself two weeks to adjust to this. If you lower your carbs drastically, the first week or two your running will suffer a bit as you deplete your glycogen reserves. Be prepared for a large weight drop the first two weeks, mostly water, from losing the stored glycogen and getting rid of salt stored in the kidneys. Then your body will learn to burn fat (hopefully your stored fat) and synthesize glycogen from fat. It took my body 2 weeks to adjust. My wife suggests to wait a month before deciding if this works for you or not.

My wife started dieting the same time I started eating low-carb. While I never saw this as a diet, she clearly did and kept a detailed food log, aiming at restricting calories. She ate about 1000 calories/day, working on a caloric deficit. She did not consciously try to eat less carbs, but I influenced her and she dropped bread and sugar. While my ratios are 60/15/25 (fat/carbs/protein), her ratios are something like 30/30/30 (but she is eating about as many grams of carbs as I do, because she is eating less calories overall). At first, she struggled a bit with running. It took her a month to start running strong (note: she was not running strong before the diet either.) Now she has lost a total of 14 lbs (started at 145 and she is now 131). She continues to eat the same way, just a bit more food, about 1200 calories, but she does not feel like she is on a diet now. One thing she keeps repeating is that it is liberating not to be afraid of fat. While she continues to eat 0% fat yogurt and skim milk, she is not afraid of meat, bacon, olive oil, eggs, mayonnaise, or other high fat foods.

I have lost about 15 lbs (from 172 down to 157) and my running is better than ever. I can run 10 miles first thing in the morning, without breakfast, maybe only eating a couple of almonds. I do not “bonk” any more. I enjoy running more and I have increased my weekly mileage. My races are going well. I start a bit slower, but gradually accelerate and tend to run the 2nd half of the race faster than the first. It is nice to pass exhausted runners, knowing that you are going to finish wrong.

What is the explanation for this? I think my body has learned to burn fat more efficiently. While our glycogen reserves are limited, our fat reserves are not, plus there is more energy in a gram of fat than glycogen. While I do drink Gatorade during a race (and I enjoyed the banana on mile 21 of the Akron Marathon) I do not try to carbo-load and I eat a low carb breakfast before the race (I just eat my regular breakfast of eggs and half an orange). I also do not make any attempt to “replenish” my glycogen reserves after a race. (Standard advice is to eat carbs 30 minutes after a run/race – I ignore this advice because I do not think I need to replenish anything.) As a matter of fact, I usually crave fat after a race, not sugar/garbs. After Akron, my wife and I went to Bob Evans for a cheese omelet and sausage/bacon. It looks like this will be our after-marathon tradition from now on.

If you like to discuss low-carb nutrition with other runners, please consider joining my email discussion list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LowCarbRun

Twinkies, Bacon or Pasta? – What’s a Runner to Eat?

2011-10-03T21:18:00.002-04:00

Twinkies, Bacon or Pasta? – What’s a Runner to Eat?

In our running email discussion list, someone posted a link to a professor of nutrition who, as an experiment, went on a diet of mostly twinkies and junk food and lost 27 pounts in 2 months:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

The trick is that he kept his total calorie intake to 1,800 calories/day, while calculators show that he needed 2,600 calories/day to maintain weight. The conclusion, for many people, is that caloric deficit will lead to weight loss, no matter what you eat.

Personally, I think that it is a bit more complicated than that, since some foods can affect your metabolism (the 2,600 calories that he needed to maintain weight) plus some foods affect your hunger more than others, which makes it difficult to maintain the diet, unless, as in the case of this professor, if you have something to prove. And it is an open question how this diet will affect your running (the professor had to stop running while in this experiment).

But even if we assume that ANY diet with a caloric deficit will lead to weight loss, the question then is what kind of diet/nutrition is easier to follow for weight control, while maintaining your running strength and is healthy for you in the long run?

Here are the observations of this experiment of one:

This morning I was 157.5 pounds. That's the lowest weight I ever remember being in my adult life. I have lost 14.5 lbs in 7 weeks and I am not even on a diet. I eat plenty of good food until I am not hungry, and maybe a bit more. I do not crave anything I do not eat. I have plenty of energy, as manifested by my recent races, like the Akron marathon. This weekend was a good example: On Saturday I went out running alone while drizzling. I did not have a preset time/distance in mind, so I kept running (and thinking). I went for 11 miles like that, enjoying my run. On Sunday I ran with my wife, 15.5 miles, no problem. I ran up some steep hills (pre-low-carb I would have walked these.) Having fun while running for hours, now that’s what I call “the joy of running”.

Last week I used fitday.com and logged everything that I ate. I ate an average of 2450 calories/day, with these ratios: Protein: 21%, Carbs: 17% (102g), Fat: 62%

2,500 calories is a lot of food. But since I am losing about a pound a week, that means that I am operating at 500 caloric deficit a day. I should eat 3,000 calories/day to maintain weight, if the calories in/calories out balance theory is correct. But I do not feel hungry to eat more.

So, the answer for me to the question of what to eat to lose weight is to forget the conventional running wisdom and eat more fat and less carbs. Eating excessive carbs made me hungry, and I gained weight, no matter how much I ran. I also did not enjoy running as much. Now, I am losing weight without being hungry and I am running strong and enjoying running more than ever. I also believe that I am doing the right thing for my body on the long run. Now some people will dispute this, claiming that a high fat, high cholesterol diet is bad for you. From what I have read, I am convinced that a low-carb diet is a healthy diet. But no one can dispute the effect that this diet has on my body and running.

Science for Smart People

2011-10-02T23:11:00.000-04:00

Science for Smart People:

I found this video, from a presentation by comedian Tom Naughton, on the 4th Annual Low-Carb Cruise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1RXvBveht0

Tom is the writer/director of the movie FatHead (which I just got in the mail and watched it last night, highly recommended!)

This is a long (45 minutes) but entertaining presentation, which for me could be a lecture in a university on observational and clinical studies. Many of our beliefs about the effect of cholesterol, fat, salt, etc., comes from news titles which, in tern, are inspired from actual observational and clinical studies. Tom explains what this means. What are observational studies and what are clinical studies? How to critically look at these studies and draw your own conclusions, instead of depending on reporters to summarize the conclusions of the study with a catchy title like "Eating eggs will make you fat" etc. There are a couple of sections where running is mentioned. A lot of the running recommendations on what to eat/drink etc., also come from similar studies, so the information is appropriate.

I am sure you will enjoy this presentation and become a bit more skeptical about what conventional medical science says we should be doing, knowing how this advice was derived. And you will be inspired to read the original studies, instead of relying on summaries.

PS, Tom’s web site is: http://www.fathead-movie.com/

His motto: You’ve been fed a load of balogna

Akron Marathon – Sept 24 2011

2011-10-02T23:06:00.000-04:00

Akron Marathon – Sept 24 2011

I had a fantastic marathon race: 3:34 & negative splits!
My wife Liz, met her half-marathon goal A: 2:09

Last night we went to the expo, bought a few things (found the newer NB Minimus shoes for only $55!) and then we went out for dinner. Several restaurants were very busy so we ended up close to home at 8:30 pm. I had a hamburger, ate half the bun, some fries and a lite beer (my calories for the day 2,750, including 170 g of carbs, so this was "carbo-loading" for me).

Saturday morning we got up at 5:00 am, stepped at the scale, 160 lbs, good. I ate two eggs with cheese, no bread. Now, that's a marathon race day breakfast! Then I made my own version of sports drink by squeezing two oranges, adding tangerine tea, a bit of salt, and some ice cubs. I peeled an orange and ate half of it in the way to Akron. I also took some nuts in case I need them during the race, but ate them before the race started.

Here are pictures we took at the stadium before the race:

The race started at 7:00 exactly. It was still dark. The temperature was 54F and it stayed constant and cloudy for about 2 1/2 hours and then the sun came out and warmed up to 65F. Overall, a very nice day for running.

My goal for the day was 3:45 or about 8:30/mile pace. I decided to follow the 3:40 pacer, which is a friend of mine. At first, we had a hard time running at the required 8:20 pace because of all the slow runners ahead of us! When are these people going to learn and start at their expected pace???

My number had my nickname DrT, but it was written DRT, so some people called me DRY, or DIRT (go Dirt!) Only a few got it right.

I followed the pacer for the first 3 miles: 8:25, 8:19, 823.

Then I pulled ahead a bit, and soon found myself running a bit faster. My Garmin only shows the average pace and every time I looked at it, it was faster, going from 8:20 to 8:10. Miles 4-12 are in roads of Akron: 8:07, 8:11, 8:12, 8:12, 8:18, 7:54 (downhill, going through the University of Akron), 8:08, 8:12, 7:47 (downhill, right before entering the Towpath).

Miles 13-15 are in the Towpath (crashed limestone mostly): 8:11, 8:11, 8:20

Then we entered the Park, an area with rolling hills, going mostly up. This is considered a hard part of the course. Miles 16-19: 8:33, 8:21, 8:33, 8:16

Then we are back running in Akron neighborhoods, one of the hardest parts of the course for me, cumulating in an uphill that leads to the Stan Hywet Museum and Gardens. Miles 20-22: 8:13, 8:14, 8:25.

Up to this point I was drinking water and Gatorade in most aid stations, only occasionally sipping through my orange juice bottle, saving it for the last part of the race. Around mile 21.5 someone was handing out bananas. I took one, and it was huge. I was going to have a bite or two, but didn't know what to do with the rest, so I ate the entire thing. Felt good!

We toured through the Stan Hywet Museum and then exited, for the rest of the course, which is mostly downhill (yeah). You can tell from my first mile, how excited I was: 7:47, 8:03. We then arrived at Market Street, which is definitely downhill: 7:20, 7:34 (I was flying :))

Finally, we turned at Main street for a bit less than a mile, to finish at the baseball stadium. My Garmin showed that after mile 26 there was 0.37 miles and my pace was 6:40!!! I was excited because I realized that I can "break" 3:35 if I hurried a bit, so this is what I did.

My wife was standing on line to take a picture of me, while I was speeding up to turn to the Stadium. It turned out OK:

I knew I had managed to beat 3:35 and was pleased! Banking effort instead of time (as the coach recommends) and running negative splits is uplifting! I passed people who had tags in their backs with 3:35 aim time and I knew they had no chance of meeting their time. I saw tired, demoralized runners. And I passed them running strong. Nothing better!

The race director shook my hand at the finish (as everyone else's) It looks like they were 1,300 marathon runners, 3,200 half marathon runners and a lot of relay runners! I think there were 10 relay runners for every marathon runner, so there were always people around me, going at different paces, some slower, most faster (because they were fresh, running smaller distances like 5 miles), which is a bit irritating because when you get passed on a marathon you are conditioned to question your pace.

My final time: 3:34:40 (8:12 pace). I finished 210/1342 overall and 15/112 in my age group.

I am very pleased with my time, 5-10 minutes faster than expected, my negative splits and lots of strength at the end (even though my legs were hurting after mile 20). My last marathon was New Orleans in January, where I started faster (running well under 8 min miles for the first 17) and then "crashed" (relatively speaking) to finish at 3:36. Then I got injured and had to drop Boston. Now I am slowly coming back.

I picked up my metal, posed for picture, then my bag of goodies. Then went up the stadium steps to pick up my two free beers, met my wife and went home. At home I was very hungry for sausage and cheese and eggs (craving fat) but there was nothing to eat, so we got dressed and went to Bob Evans for a nice omelet with sausage and bacon. Aaahhhh...

My wife's A goal was under 2:10 for the half marathon. She achieved this with 2:09:03. We have another marathon/half marathon in 2 weeks. I think her goal should be 2:05 (her PR is 2:04).

Overall, a great day for both of us!

Standard Dietary Advice for Runners (makes my hair stand up!)

2011-10-02T22:54:00.000-04:00

Hi Guys,

I was looking around running web sites for some inspiration for my Akron marathon tomorrow, and found the following nutritional advice for runners in active.com:

“For athletes in periods of heavy training, a good rule of thumb is to consume three to five grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight per day. A competitive, 170-pound runner might range between 500 and 700 grams daily."

"Fruits and vegetables are carbohydrate-rich foods that also contain a great deal of other nutrients, and it is widely known that you should eat them in plentiful amounts. But don't cut potatoes, bread and pasta from your diet."

"Ideally, four hours before exercise, you would consume two grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight.... A 120-pound runner would not be able to consume 17 slices of rye bread with four hours to go before a long run. Since this has much to do with the sheer bulk of such a meal, remember that sports beverages and juices offer a concentrated dose of carbohydrate before a race, while filling the stomach far less."

Makes my hair stand up! :)

And this, regarding pre-race eating:

“Every meal is important, but no meal is more important than the one before a race. The main purpose of the pre-race meal is to fill your liver with glycogen. At least 80 percent of the calories you consume in your pre-race meal should come from carbohydrates. Keep your protein, and especially your fat and fiber consumption low. These nutrients take up space that are better utilized by carbohydrate. ”

I am curious how my pre-race meal of two eggs (no bread) will work out... Oh, I forgot the orange!

I will report tomorrow.

Carboload or not? This is the question!

2011-10-02T22:50:00.000-04:00

A friend wrote the following in our local running email discussion list:
> I have been doing some heavy eating the past few months and the extra
> weight has really helped me lower my time. I have done a lot of research
> and the extra weight converted to muscle is a huge factor in increasing
> speed. I have a little cold and lost a few pounds thus week but am hoping
> to put the pounds back on today and tomorrow by excessive carbo- loading.

My reply:
Ha, ha, ha! I cannot tell if you are serious or not. Because what you are saying can go both ways. I agree and I disagree at the same time.

Yes, being heavy and extra carbo-loaded will make you race stronger, especially shorter distances. Been there, done that.

But at the same time, I felt like crap most of the time, my clothes wouldn't fit, I'd get hot and sweat easily, I'd take naps, not sleep well at night, bonked often in training runs and would not enjoy training too much, but I'd run a fast race.

After dropping 10 lbs going low-carb, I have more energy during the day, my clothes fit, I enjoy running more, and run stronger the second half of a race. But my racing times are bit slower, I admit it. I trust this will change soon though, as a result of training and adjusting to a low-carb nutrition. I set my PRs in half, full marathon, and Buckeye 50K when I was my lowest weight ever.

And since I am more interested in very long races (I signed up for Burning River) I am not sure if I need more weight and more speed or less weight and more endurance.

Youngstown 25K – Sept 17, 2011

2011-10-02T22:46:00.000-04:00

Youngstown 25K – Sept 17, 2011

I just came back from running the 7th Annual Youngstown Ultra Trail Classic 50K & 25K. This is a new race for me (first time) and decided to run the 25K since I am only one week away from the Akron Marathon. I heard good things about the course and wanted to see it.

I might have upped my carbs a bit last week, with a few more fruits and some bites of chocolate! :) The scale showed up 2 lbs the morning of the race (could be the salty nuts too). The morning of the race I ate a 2 egg omelet with some cheese and nuts and vegetables, plus half an orange. No bread. This is the first race I did not have any carbs for breakfast!

Temperature this morning was 51F, predicted sunny. I asked a guy if I should wear a short or long-sleeve T-shirt and he said "short, of course!" which is what I did. I was a bit cold at first but OK later.

I was planning to wear sturdy shoes but last week I injured my little toe and all shoes hurt, except for the New Balance Minimus. This was not a good choice because the course was full of rocks and roots. But, I had no choice...

The race started at 8 am. Everyone was running fast, but I decided to start slow. Very quickly we hit a narrow long staircase. I was stuck walking it, behind everyone else. Then we entered a single lane trail. NOW I know why everyone was running fast! They were trying to position themselves ahead of the slower runners!

So, I passed quite a few runners in the first miles. Between mile 3 and 3.5 I passed several runners in tricky one lane paths, and I am sure I irritated them, trying to pass at downhills (I like to run fast at downhills). I could not pass the last guy until we hit an open area. Then he moved to the side and said "You can pass me now... Thank you for being patient." I am sure he was thinking "Get lost you jerk!"

I reached the first aid station (4 miles) and grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I then started running in a scenic path around a lake (4 miles long). At around 1/2 mile in this trail, I saw little pink flags leading out of the trail.

Now, the trail was marked both with pink ribbons hanging from trees and pink flags in the ground, plus white arrows. I turned out of the trail, following the pink flags. I crossed a road, then entered a strange area without any trail marked. I was jumping trees and going through wild vegetation. I thought "Hmmm, they decided to make this challenging". But I was following pink flags. I went through people's properties, very close to their houses. I started thinking "How do they let runners run so close to people houses? These people must be annoyed". After a while, I said to myself "This cannot be right". I bent and inspected the pink flags I was following. They were markings for gas lines!!! I had taken a wrong turn, following flags marking gas lines!!! Duhhh!! I turned around, and back into the trail.

I started running fast trying to cover the lost ground and out of frustration... I passed people who I had passed before mile 1 and now I was in mile 5. How much time did I lose? Around 8 minutes I estimated. (Unfortunately, I accidentally stopped my watch so I cannot be sure).

I completed the loop and reached the aid station, now mile 8. We had to repeat this 4 mile loop. I made sure I stayed at the course this time! I passed two more guys, while completing the loop. Now I am at mile 12 and have 4 more miles to go. In these 4 miles I passed 2-3 people that I remember passing at mile 3.5. Then I saw the guy who said "Thank you for being patient" ahead of me. I tried to catch him but he finished 20 yards ahead of me. I zeroed my watch and I know I did the 2nd half of the course in 1:06.

The results are out. I am in 6th place and my official time is 2:26. This means that my time for each half is:

1st half: 1:20
2nd half: 1:06

Quite a difference. Either the detour lasted more than 8 minutes, or I ran an impressive negative split (probably both). I felt very strong towards the end. This would have been the trail race to break 5 hours in a 50K. At the finish, I was not tired at all. I felt I could have gone the entire 50K without a problem. My feet were not hurting from all the rocks and roots, but I was very careful where I was stepping, which slowed me down. On another day, with better shoes and without getting lost, I think I can do a lot better!

So, it is clear that my running has improved and I am getting stronger and stronger. Running a faster 2nd half in a long race is something that not many people can do. The low carb nutrition is working for me!

Overall, I am very pleased and have good memories of the race. Next year I will either do the 25K going for a better time, or I will do the 50K.

River Run Half Marathon Sept 11, 2011

2011-10-02T22:32:00.000-04:00

River Run Half Marathon Sept 11, 2011

Bottom Line: 1:35:25 (7:15 pace) – with great effort!

This morning I was 159 lbs. I ate a few bites of almond butter (no bread) and half an orange and left (with my wife) for the race. The weather was OK, 65-70F, high humidity, cloudy. The course is on roads at a local parkway. Here is a picture of us before the race:

This is the course where I have my half marathon PR from last year, 1:30:07, but I knew that this year I was not in shape to get anywhere close to this so I aimed for 1:35 and that’s what I got.

I made an effort to start slower, so I avoided the temptation to start with my running friends (who are fast). My mile splits: 7:13 7:08 7:00 7:02 7:10 7:17 7:01 7:35 7:00 7:30 7:34 7:26 7:33 6:23

I am happy with the even pace (7-7:30). Towards the end my legs were getting tired. Mile 13 was a torture. I see I managed to maintain my pace, even though I felt I was going slower. Of course, I sprinted to the finish :) (6:23 is for the last 0.1).

I did not bring my water bottle and I think this hurt me. I was looking forward to the water stations every 2 miles. Towards the end I was drinking two cups of water in every station. I used to be able to run the entire half with no or very little water, when I was carbo-loading, but now it seems that I need more water, so I will remember to carry my bottle with me from now on.

My wife, Liz, had a PW, 2:20. This is 12 minutes slower than her slowest half (this was her 9th). She too has lost some weight (8 lbs) but feels a bit weak and her mileage is lower this year than last year. Here are two pictures, one at the last mile and one after the finish (she did not feel very well afterwards).

End of 3rd Low-Carb Week: Where does my energy come from?

2011-10-02T22:13:00.000-04:00

I posted this email in the “Joy of Running” email discussion list at the end of the 3rd week of low-carb nutrition. The title was “Where Does My Energy Come From?”

Hi Guys, So...

I started a low carb nutrition 3 weeks ago. I eat eggs, bacon/sausage, cheese, nuts, fresh vegetables for breakfast. A large mixed salad with olive oil and vinegar, plus cheese, nuts for lunch. Some serving of meat and vegetables for dinner. At least two fruits. Some cottage cheese or yogurt (both full fat, not low fat) for dairy. I do not NOT eat sugar, flour, bread, pasta, grains. I do not feel hungry. I eat as much as I feel I need. I do not hold back on calories, only carbs. I do not have any cravings for anything I do not eat.

While most runners want to lose 5 lbs, I have lost 11.5 lbs in 3 weeks. For the interest of science, here are my weight measurements every day since my new nutrition:

Week zero (pre-low-carb) : 171 lbs
Week 1: 171, 167, 167, 166, 164, 163, 165 (avg: 166)
Week 2: 163, 163, 164, 162, 162, 162, 161 (avg: 162)
Week 3: 161, 162, 163, 161, 161, 160 (avg: 161)

This morning I was 159.5 lbs, so 11.5 lbs down since 3 weeks ago.

The first two weeks I had good and bad runs. Bad runs were on hot & humid weather where I sweated a lot and end up aborting the run (happened twice). The third week (this one) I felt better, ran easier, stop sweating (sweating less than normal, for the same effort.)

Every morning this week, Tue, Wed, Thu, I went for a 10 mile run in the morning. The first day I ate a few nuts, being afraid to run without eating anything. The other two days I ate nothing and felt fine. Yesterday (Friday) was normally my rest day. I had an afternoon snack and then joined my wife for an easy 5 mile run at 10 min/mile pace. Back at home I was NOT hungry so I did not eat anything.

This morning I got up and went out at 6:30 am for a group run. I did not eat anything. Now, you would expect that being on a low carb diet and having run 5 mile last night without eating dinner, I would have completely exhausted my glycogen reserves so it would not be possible to run 10 miles this morning without some high carb breakfast or at least some Gatorade. I only had a few sips of water before I left home.

Well, I ran 10 miles at 8:10 average pace (mile 4 was 7:42) I felt that my running was effortless. I did not feel tired, or out of energy. I actually held myself back because tomorrow I am running the River Run half marathon.

So, where does the energy come from? Am I really burning (mostly) fat instead of (mostly) glycogen?

I feel I have more strength than ever. I am up to running 60 miles/week (average each of the last 3 weeks). I am really perplexed. It appears that without carbs I am running better. It goes against everything we have been told about runners needing to eat lots of carbs because they are energy and without carbs we will hit the wall.

I see myself as running a science experiment on myself. So far the results are very encouraging :)

Leave No Trace Half Marathon, Sept 3 2011

2011-10-02T22:08:00.000-04:00

Leave No Trace Half Marathon, Sept 3 2011
Saturday morning I stepped on the scale, pleased with the 161 lbs reading (down from 172 not long ago), got dressed and left to run the "Leave No Trace Trail Half Marathon" at local trails. I ran this race last year (inaugural) and enjoyed it, so here I was again.

The course description reads: "Technical, mostly single track trail run... good climbs and descents..." which is correct. The course was dry and the weather was hot and humid 70F at 6 am).

Mile splits in trail races are meaningless because of the irregular course, but here are my splits anyway: 8:49, 8:53, 9:04, 9:16, 9:35, 9:04, 9:16, 9:35, 9:09, 9:10, 9:04, 9:06, 9:12, 8:58, 9:28, 9:05, 8:53.

I started too fast and I knew it. I was trying to position myself a bit in the front so I am not stuck behind slow runners on a single-track trail, but everyone was running fast, as if they were in a panic, so I got carried away. I see names of people who I passed after the first mile and their average pace is 10 min/mile. What are they doing running sub-9 min first mile? I have to remember from now on to slow down! Running a fast first mile is counter-productive. It is always better to have negative splits and pass lots of people instead of slowing down and getting passed later in the race.

The first couple of miles I felt I was running fast and sweating a lot, burning whatever little glycogen I have in my body. I then stabilized running at a comfortable pace with little sweating. On a hot day like this I put my water bottle in the freezer overnight. Then as the ice starts melting, I can use the cold water to wash my face and cool my head, or drink it. Cold water feels so much better on a hot day! At the first aid station I filled the half-empty bottle with Gatorade. Sweating started again as it was getting hotter and harder with time. I made the mistake to take ½ water 1/2 Gatorade at the 2nd and last aid station while I only really needed water, so I started getting sick of the Gatorade.

Throughout the race I passed quite a few runners and only remember being passed by one, Laurie Schroeder, who finished 2nd Female overall. She came from behind a bit late in the race (mile 4?) and slowly but surely passed every one behind me, then passed me, then the runners ahead of me, one at a time, and disappeared into the trail. I thought I'd never see her again, but I caught up with her with only 0.2 miles to go and passed her as I was sprinting to the finish line, and finished ahead of her by 21 seconds. Seeing the finish line is such a relief that I have to sprint from sheer joy, no matter how tired I am.

Finish time: 2:03 (9:05 pace) finished top 3 in age group (50-59)
(Last year there were 78 finishers, this year 143)
Here is a picture of me after the finish:

I was very pleased with my strong finish and time (2:03), until I later saw that last year my time was 1:57! But, looking closer at the results I see that Kyle Bowman who won the race both years, also finished 6 minutes slower this year. It seems that the heat had affected everyone.

After the race we were offered bananas, oatmeal bars and various bags with chips, etc. Normally, I would have taken several pieces of everything home (my wife accuses me of going grocery-shopping after races). Or, I would have eaten stuff at the spot (hey, free food!) After the 5 mile Twilight Trail race a couple of weeks ago I had Gatorade (a couple of cups), watermelon (3-4 slices), three glasses of beer and about 12 pieces of pizza. But that was then (pre low-carb nutrition). Now, I just had water and took a banana home (to eat it during the week, one bite a day :) :))

Overall, a fine race, one to do year after year!

PS. Sunday I went for a recovery run with my wife and managed to run 15 miles at 9 min/mile pace, a bit surprised since it felt slower and very comfortable.

Low-Carb Eating & Running – First 2 Weeks

2011-10-02T21:15:00.000-04:00

On Saturday August 20, a day before my epiphany, and at 171 lbs, I went for a 20 mile group run in Hinckely. I was a bit tired, walked a bit, but finished the 20 miles at a pace of 8:54.

On Sunday August 21 I started eating low carb. On Tuesday I ran to the Rec Center and back through the trails, a total of 13 miles and felt good. On Wednesday my wife and I normally do our 5 mile tempo run at the towpath. Instead of going in the morning, we went in the afternoon. It was a hot day (70F +) Something weird happened: I warmed up one mile, then tried to run fast but I could not go too fast. By mile 3 I had to stop and walk. I was soaked in sweat. And the sweat was salty. And I was thirsty. I was definitely sweating more than it can be explained by the temperature or anything else. What is going on?

Books on running (like “The Lore of Running”) tell us that when we run, we burn a mixture of glycogen and fat. More glycogen at first, or the faster we go. Glycogen is tied to water in a ratio of 1:4. Every gram of glycogen burned releases 4 grams of water. This kind of sweat in my experience does not carry a lot of salt, plus it does not make me thirsty. So something more was happening here to explain that the sweat was salty and I was thirsty. Books on low-carb running say that the initial weight loss on a low carb diet is due to the release of salt and the associated water. Salt is stored in our bodies (liver) and it is being released. I think this is what I was experiencing. I experienced this one more time on week 2 and then it was gone. Definitely a transient phenomenon.

By the end of the first week I had dropped 7 lbs but I was worried about the weekend because I had two major running events:

Saturday: I had a 20 mile training run along the blue line, in preparation for the Akron marathon
Sunday: I was running the Buckeye Half Marathon.

Friday night I decided to eat a bit more carbs so I ate a bowl of brown rice and had an extra fruit. On Saturday and Sunday morning I ate carbs for breakfast, a bit of oatmeal with chocolate, honey, some peanut butter and yogurt. I took plenty of water and had Gatorade during the runs.

I was surprised to find out that everything went fine! My 20 mile training run was strong, I was not to thirsty, and my pace was 8:30 and finished strong (compare this to the previous 20 miler, a week ago, pre-carb, 8:54 pace and walking). The half marathon race on Sunday also went well. My pace was 7:40, a bit on the slower side (compare with 6:53 in the 10 miler, two weeks ago) but I felt strong overall (especially considering that the previous day I had run 20 miles)

After two weeks of eating low-carb, my running was strong, so I felt I had nothing to worry about. But the real test would be in the next 4 races:

Leave no Trace Half Marathon Trail Run
River Run Half Marathon
Youngstown 25K
Akron Marathon

Reports on these races follow next. Just a clue to increase your interest: Things got even better!

My Low-Carb Ephiphany

2011-10-02T20:52:00.000-04:00

On August 21, 2011, Sunday morning, I was checking my email and saw a newsletter from Dr. Macrola. I rarely read his newsletters but something got my attention. Something about calories that count or don’t count. I clicked at the newsletter and read an interview with Gary Taubes, author of the books “Good Calories, Bad Calories” and “Why We Get Fat and What to Do about it”.

He basically said is that calories that come from carbohydrates are bad, they make you fat, while calories that come from fat are good, they help you burn your fat.

Now, this is something that always puzzled me. Despite my scientific training, I was always skeptical of the “Calories In, Calories Out” idea that says: If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. If you eat less calories that you burn, you will lose weight. It is all about calorie balance. If you want to lose weight, you need to eat less and exercise more, to tip this balance. If you cut your calories by 500 a day, you will lose a pound a week. If you switch from a can of regular pop (100 calories) to diet pop, you will lose 11 lbs in a year, assuming that everything else stays the same.

I always found this last statement ridiculous. “Assuming that everything else stays the same,” but how can it stay the same? For one thing, drinking diet pop makes me hungry so I eat my 100 calories (and much more) from something else. Our bodies are not machines! They are much more complicated than that. Clearly, the body tries to preserve its weight. If that was not the case, as Gary Taubes says, if you ate just 30 calories more a day (that’s only a bite) then in 10 years you would gain 31 pounds, but clearly this is not happening.

Tim Noakes, in his book “Lore of Running” (3rd edition, not 4th, for some reason this part has been removed) discusses exactly this topic and mentions actual cases of people eating 5000 calories a day and not gaining weight and people eating 1000 calories and gaining weight. I have been through some periods in my life where I was eating more than 3000 calories a day and I was not gaining weight, so something more complicating is happening and a calorie balance is not obvious. I was thinking that maybe my body was not extracting all the caloric content of the foods I ate.

What was new to me was the idea that calories from carbs will make you fat. Up to this point, I thought that food is food, and, even though I did not buy the caloric balance theory of gaining weight, I did not have any explanation for why some people gain weight and others do not, even if they are eating and exercising in a similar way.

So here was my epiphany: I am struggling with my weight because I am eating too many carbs!!!

My whole life flashed before my eyes. How in Greece I was eating loads of fat and was slim. How in the USA, replacing fat for sugar I gained weight. How in Arizona I lost 5 lbs despite eating lots of fat. How I crave fat after very long runs. How I have tried to cut fat to lose weight and ended up going crazy. How I carbo load before every race and almost every day.

I thought about what I was eating, and I was definitely eating too many carbs! In general, I am not a big pasta or bread eater. But I ate bread, cereal, cookies (lots of sweet foods), pizza, potatoes, and fruits. LOTS of FRUITS! On an average day I would eat 3 bananas, two apples, an orange and maybe other fruits. My wife goes grocery shopping on Saturday and by Wednesday we are out of fruit and she is not eating any. Many times she said to me “how much fruit are you eating?” not believing in her eyes that all the fruit was gone! I ate fruits as a snack between meals, as a desert after a meal, when I was thirsty, or when I had nothing better to do. Go to the kitchen, grab an apple. That’s the story of my life. Everyone says that fruit is good, so no problem. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” so I would eat 3 apples for extra insurance. Even Weight Watchers dropped the points for fruits so people can eat fruit without any guilt or worries “We know that it is not eating fruit that brought you here.” Yeah, sure….

I read reviews in Amazon, ordered Taubes’ book “Why We Get Fat and What to Do about it”, and, while waiting for the book to arrive, I went low-carb cold turkey.

I stopped eating the following: Sugar (in all forms and in all foods that contain sugar, except for an occasional fruit), bread, pasta, rice, potatoes. I would eat: Eggs, meat/fish, lots of vegetables/salad with olive oil, nuts, dairy (lots of cheese, some yogurt). I did this without reading or counting anything. My estimate is that I cut my carbs from 300-600 grams a day to under 50g. So for breakfast I would eat eggs (no bread) with some cheese and green vegetables. For lunch a large salad with meat or fish, and same for dinner. For snacks I would eat nuts or cheese.

A number of interesting things happened the first two weeks:

1. My appetite was gone. I would eat breakfast at 8 am and then I would have to force myself to eat lunch, because I was not hungry! Now, that’s unheard of. Usually, I would be hungry two hours after breakfast, but this was not happening now.

2. In two weeks I lost 10 lbs. I went from 171 lbs to 161 lbs. Of course, I had no illusions. This rapid weight loss is due to water loss (see discussion in next blog). But it was water that I did not need, so I was happy to get rid of it. And I lost two inches size in the waist.

3. I had more energy, did not need a nap midday any more, and was very happy and cheerful. I would sleep soundly through the night.

There were also a couple of weird transitional effects: I had a bit of indigestion, as if the fat was hard to digest. For a while I had too much energy/hyperactivity, moving around, talking a lot. I felt as if I was intoxicated. I would not stop talking, forgetting names or words not coming to my mouth, my mind was racing, I was happy. I believe that these effects can happen when the body enters a stage of ketosis. This happens when, in the absence of carbohydrates, the body converts fat to glucose (sugar.) As a result, ketones are produced and these can have the effects described here. This stage is not dangerous but it feels weird. In any case, I was out of it as soon as I increased my carbs a bit by eating more fruit.

All this time, I had one worry: How about running? It seems that 11 out of 10 runners believe that carbs are necessary to run. A low-carb diet seems to be incompatible with running, according to 99% of the information in the internet and the running literature. In the next blog I will describe how this low-carb nutrition affected my running the first two weeks.

Struggling with Weight Control 2002-2011

2011-10-02T20:32:00.000-04:00

I outlined in the previous blog how I got into running to lose weight and how I fell in love with running in the process. But now my priorities had changed. Now I wanted to lose weight so I can run better. And here is the problem: My company closed in 2002 and I started working at home where I had access to the kitchen and eating any time I felt hungry, but also bored, anxious or just procrastinating. This caused some weight gain. My weight fluctuated between 175-180 lbs for a few years. Here I am, at the 2006 River Run half marathon and the 2007 Towpath marathon, around170 lbs:

I gradually fell into this pattern: I would gain weight during Fall/Winter. I have noticed that the cold weather makes me hungry, as if my body wants to pack fat for the cold days of the winter. I would then try to drop the weight in the Spring. I tried a variety of ways to lose weight:

Fasting. Even as a teenager, I would occasionally fast (after eating a lot during the weekend, I would not eat on Monday). I had no problem with that. I know that traditional medical science does not look at fasting favorably, but I see nothing wrong with it, if done occasionally (and some people think it is actually good for you, even for a long period of time). It is a good way to stop weight gain and jump-start a diet of more restrained eating. I only fasted more than one day once: On March 2010 I fasted for 2 ½ days. I started at 170 lbs and exited at 163 lbs. The reason I stopped (on Friday) is that I had a race coming up on Saturday (St. Malachi 5 miles).

Detox Diet: This was my wife’s idea. It is a 10 day diet. You start by “preparing” for 6 days by eating a diet that is similar to a low-carb diet. No bread. Eggs for breakfast. A salad with a piece of meat or fish (4 oz) for lunch and dinner. Some things we were allowed to eat (yogurt, fruits) some things were not allowed to eat (sugar/sweets, bread, cheese) and some things we had to eat. What I liked about this diet is that, except for breakfast, my wife would prepare all the meals so I did not have to think about anything, just ate what my wife served me. Between meals, I cheated a bit, eating some cheese and nuts. I never felt hungry, yet the weight was dropping fast. The 7th day we went on a one-day fast. This was followed by 3 more days of diet, to “seal the deal”. I entered the diet at 175 lbs and exited at 168. There was a weekend with a long run in the middle, where I could not run too fast or too far, but right after the diet was over, I ran the Hermes 10 miler with a very good time (1:11, 7:07 pace) and felt very strong. After my first Detox diet, I dropped at least 5 lbs and kept it off.

While my wife was a true believer in the Detox diet, I was never convinced that there was anything magic behind it. I thought I lost weight because I ate less than nromal and did not eat any sugar. At this point, I believed that food was food. You eat less (of food, not particular foods), you lose weight, you eat more, you gain weight.

After the original success, we tried the diet several times at different times. I cheated even more, eating many “forbidden” foods. Even though we lost a bit of weight, we got all the weight back. After a couple of tries, the weight would come as quickly as the weekend after the diet ended. I remember asking my wife towards the end of the diet “why can’t we continue eating like this every day?” In other words, why don’t we make this a way of eating for life, instead of going back to our previous ways of eating? But, this did not happen. We were back to eating lots of carbs, and the weight came back.

3 pm Diet: I wrote about this diet earlier in my blog. The concept is simple: Stop eating after 3 pm. I would normally eat 3-4 meals until 3 pm and then stop. Somehow I managed not to have an appetite after 3 pm, even on days where I ran to the fitness center, exercised, and then ran back again. This worked great for me. I reached my lowest weight ever, 158-160 lbs in the summer of 2009, when I followed this diet. I also had a PR in all major distances in this period:

5K: 19:19 – still stands
Half Marathon: 1:30:07 (stills stands)
Marathon: 3:22 (I was not at my lowest weight, and I improved to 3:19 next year)
Buckeye 50K: 5:04 (I was in pace to break 5 hours and then hit the wall, 2 miles before the finish, but the record still stands).

I developed the theory that if you go to bed relatively hungry, you will never gain weight. Somehow, during the night, fat is being burned. It is eating late at night and going to bed with a full stomach that will make you fat. During the night, fat will be deposited.

I tried to repeat the 3pm diet next year, but it was impossible. I was unable not to eat after exercise in the evening.

In July 2011 I was up to 170 lbs, a worrisome sign because we were in the middle of the summer and I should have been 160-165 lbs. Something interesting happened then: We went to Colorado for a conference and vacation. We had free breakfast and happy hour at the hotel. Since the food was free, I ate a lot. I started my morning with a run from 3 to 5 miles. Then I had a large breakfast with eggs and sausage/bacon, a yogurt and orange juice. I would then skip lunch, being stuffed from breakfast. During the day I moved a lot going to tours and attending the conference.

At 4pm, I went to the happy hour. I ate a lot of cheese. I mean, a lot! Some crackers, nuts, and drank a beer or two. Overall, I did not eat much sugar. I also ran less than normal, but walked a lot in tours, etc. Given the amount of fat that I ate, I was expecting to have gained weight, so I was surprised to see that I lost 5 lbs (165). I attributed this weight drop to the fact that I was moving a lot. It did not occur to me that my diet (high fat, low carb) had anything to do with it, on the contrary, I thought that this diet was terrible.

Two weeks later, after returning to my previous eating habits, I hit an all time high of 172 lbs. This was a bit of a shock. “It is August and I am 172 lbs. What is going to happen in the Fall or Winter?”

In addition to the extra weight, I was struggling with my running. My long runs were a drag. I was constantly hungry. I needed a nap every day, despite getting plenty of sleep at night. I remember one day I was running from home to the rec center and at around mile 2 I called my wife and asked her to bring some food because I was feeling weak! It is interesting that my racing was good (I ran the Perfect 10 Miler on August 14, 2011, with the excellent time of 1:08:64, 6:53 mile/pace). It was my overall training that did not feel good.

And then came the “Epiphany”….

How I got Into Running and lost 50 lbs in 2001

2011-10-02T20:10:00.004-04:00

By the end of 2000 I had ballooned to 220 lbs. Here is how I looked at 210 lbs at Grand Canyon AZ (this picture is really shocking to me and everyone who sees it now – my family claims that they do not remember me being that big ever):

I remember after a company lunch at Angie’s pizza in December 2001, I stepped up the scale at work and I was 230 lbs (108 kg). Despite this weight, I continued to play competitive basketball 3 times a week at lunch time, and also rode my bike, walked and played racquetball. I had some pain in my knees and I could not really run fast, but basketball involves some sprinting and a lot of walking, not continuous running, so I was doing OK.

It was January of 2001 when Ken Mondak, a coworker who was 10 years older (I was 40, he was 50) told me that he was running 3 miles every single day. I was stunned! “That’s not possible”, I thought. And then “If he can do it, I can do it to!” So I started going to the Brecksville Rec Center, every day after work, running 3 miles in the track (5k, 50 rounds, about 30-35 minutes). At the same time, I monitored my weight. I would weigh myself every day, and then average the reading for the week (a habit that I have kept ever since). I would then plot my weight as a function of time. Here is how the graph looked after a year of running:

It is an interesting graph. There were times when my weight stayed constant for as long as 4 weeks, sometimes it went up for a while, and then boing, drops.

Bottom line: In 2001 dropped 50 lbs going from 225 to 175 lbs (from about 100 kg to 80 kg). By early 2002 I had dropped under 170 lbs. My life was transformed. My basketball and racquetball improved, my energy increased, my knee pain disappeared. I felt better than ever.

I should note that I lost the weight without any attempt to change my eating, just by the excitement of running, working full time in an office and playing basketball or running during lunch. On a typical day, I would start my day by eating a banana (I was not a big breakfast eater) then pack a small lunch (tuna, vegetables, an apple) which I would sometimes eat before lunch. I would either play basketball or run during lunch at work. After work, I’d go to the rec center to run 3 miles. Then at home, I would not have much appetite and there is so much I could eat in one meal. By Friday afternoon I would be at the lowest weight of the week. I would then make up lost calories by eating during the weekend, but my weight would drop with time as you see in the graph (interestingly, weight drop usually comes in steps, not gradually).

In the process of running to lose weight, I fell in love with running.

I entered my first 5K in 2002 (Towpath) and finished at 21:27, good for 3rd place in my age group. I was ecstatic! In 2003 I ran my first 10K and my first Half Marathon. In 2004 I ran my first marathon (Towpath Marathon) under 4 hours (3:55). As time went on, my times improved. Most of my Personal Records right now are from 2009-2010: 19.19 for 5K, 1:30 for half marathon, 3:19 at the 2010 Cleveland Marathon.

A highlight for me was running the Athens Marathon in 2009 (report here) and then again in 2010, a historic occasion, celebrating 2,500 years from the battle of Marathon.

In 2005 I overheard that one of my Saturday running friends would not be coming on Saturday because he wanted to run trails on Sunday, training for the Buckeye 50K. I had never run trails, but decided to join the training group on Sundays. I did all training runs and the last minute I signed up for the race. I did great, finishing at 5:14. Then I fell in love with trail running and ultra marathon running. So, in the course of a year I alternate trail and road running. I think this keeps me injury-free. The Buckeye 50K remains my favorite race. We live cloes to the Buckeye trail and regularly run in it, going from home to the rec center in Brecksville.

My goal now is to run a 100 mile race (Burning River) next summer under 24 hours! My longest run so far has been the Mohican 50 mile (80 km) race (see report here). My ultimage goal is to one day run the Spartathlon, 250 km (~150 miles) from Athens to Sparta, that needs to be finished under 40 hours.

A couple of years ago, my wife, Liz, starting running. So now we go to races together. She has run several half-marathons and many 5K and 10K (she ran the 10K in Athens in 2010, faster than the Prime Minster of Greece, George Papandreou!) Our daughter Lea runs on and off, joining us in some races. Our son Tony so far is not interested in running, only basketball.

In the Beginning - The first 40 years of my life

2011-10-02T19:13:00.003-04:00

Greetings,

I have decided to change the focus of my running blog, to emphasize my new interest in low-carb nutrition. On August 21, 2011, I had an “Epiphany”. I came to realize that I was (like many fellow runners) eating too many carbs, and decided to embark in a low-carb nutrition for life. I will explain what happened in the next few blogs. So, from now on, in addition to race reports, there will be some talk about nutrition and other health issues. In this blog I would like summarize the first 40 years of my life with emphasis on exercise and weight.

I was born in Athens, Greece, on July 17, 1959. My house was only 10 minutes walking distance from Acropolis and my Elementary school was even closer “By the Shadow of the Parthenon”. At 4th grade I was accepted in Athens College, a prestigious private high school with ties to the USA. My parents could not afford to pay the tuition so my mother’s father (George, whose name I carry) helped with that.

As a kid I was a bit chubby, but not overweight. My body frame was a bit heavier than my classmates and especially my thighs were larger. I was also taller and stronger than the average kid in Elementary school. In sports I was first in “baseball throwing” (there was no baseball game in Greece, but in elementary school track & field, throwing a baseball ball was the only sport that involved throwing something – we were too young for shot put etc). I was also a great goalkeeper in soccer, due to my fast reflexes.

Here is a picture of my 5th Grade class. I was one of the taller kids, but, when I hit puberty, I did not grow up much, ending up being of average height (5’10”, 1.75m).

In middle and high school I switched from soccer to basketball and won 2nd place in discus throwing two years in a row. I then dropped track & field, and concentrated on playing basketball (I was the team captain for a while in high school, I was fast with good reflexes and outside shot). I was not a good student academically (until my Sophomore year) but I always liked sports. I was good in most sports, except for sprinting. I liked long distance running and I think I could have done well, but running for fitness was unknown at the time, and my high school coaches never paid any attention to me. In one timed run of 1K my time was equivalent to a 20 minute 5K. I enjoyed running “uneven road”, an equivalent to cross country. I remember doing some crazy things, like walking from Athens to Glyphada (at least 5-6 hours walking), riding my bike long distances, but it never occurred to me to run long distances.

Regarding nutrition, back in Greece in the 60s and 70s, low-fat was unknown. My yogurt boasted right on the label “10% fat”. We used plenty of olive oil in salads or to cook with, we ate chicken with skin (we also preferred dark pieces – men usually picked the dark pieces, leaving the inferior lean white pieces for the women), but also bread, potatoes and pasta. We did not eat sweets (or pop) except for special occasions. Yes, there is the famous Greek baklava, but they do not eat it regularly. Every Sunday with my family we would go out for dinner and then, at home, my father will send me to the store to buy a bar of chocolate, one bar for everyone. This was our special treat. There was no chocolate in the house during the week.

I also smoked since I was 14 years old. Here is a historic family picture: The summer after I graduated from high school, my father (right) is openly acknowledging the fact that I am smoking (he knew it, but it was supposed to be a secret) by lighting my cigarette under the supervision and clear approval of our family doctor and personal friend! I quit smoking after the 2nd year in the University. I was too interested in sports to keep smoking. My father and mother smoked, and my brother and sister are still smoking today.

After graduating from high school, I was accepted at the Athens Technical University (ΕΜΠ) to study Mining & Metallurgical Engineering. I specialized in Physical Metallurgy. I loved learning and did well, graduating with honors. Thirsty for knowledge, I wanted to continue my studies in the USA. I had my heart set to going to Columbia in New York, because one of the Metallurgy professors had my (not common) last name, Nick Themelis. But Northwestern University, in Evanston IL (near Chicago) gave me a great scholarship so in 1984, I left Greece for graduate studies in Material Science & Engineering.

Here is a family picture taken on September 4th 1984, just before we left for the airport. I am 25 years old and I look about 180 lbs. My father was overweight all his life (he does not look too bad in this picture) and so was his sister. My brother is now about 300 lbs.

In the USA I met my wife, Liz, right away. We lived in Evanston IL from 1984 to 1990. There we played intramural basketball, I walked a lot, rode my bike, and was generally thin. I look around 170 lbs in these pictures, taken around 1984-1985:

Regarding eating, I had a bit of a dietary shock. While cooking, my wife would carefully remove all the fat from the meat, and eat low-fat or no-fat dairy products. I immediately felt that something was missing from my diet, and now I know that this was fat. After dinner, I felt that I was filled but not satisfied. I gradually learned to replace fat with sugar. I tried to stick to my guns regarding milk and yogurt. I always liked chocolate milk but my wife refused to buy “whole milk” for me. Only skim milk at home. And, at best 2% yougart. “You do not need the fat” was her standard response. This seemed a bit funny to me, because after drinking skim milk, she would eat ice cream, so something did not quite add up.

We got married on May 2, 1987. Again, I look around 170 lbs in this wedding picture:

In 1990 we moved to Cleveland OH, where I got my first job. I rarely stepped up in the scale. My guess is that in 1990 I was about 180 lbs but started gaining a few pounds every year. For a long time I was round 190+ pounds. I was generally hiding my weight. Here are some pictures from 1994 to 1998. I must be around 190 lbs in these pictures.

By 2000 I was over 200 lbs, at the age of 40. Here is a family picture taken around this time (my wife had also gained weight - she eventually lost the extra weight, just like I did):

I remember in the summer of 2000 we went to Arizona. We stopped at a restaurant and I ordered some kind of salad. It came in a huge plate. That was A LOT of food, but I managed to eat the entire plate. The waitress said that she did not remember anyone finishing this salad before. And that was one of my problems. I would not only eat everything in my plate, but I would also eat everything in my wife’s and children’s plates too! No wonder I gained so much weight. Here is how I looked in this trip by the Grand Canyon. I estimate my weight to be around 210 lbs.

Oh my Gawd! What have I done to myself???!!! (to be continued)

Towpath 1/2 Marathon & 10K – October 10, 2010 (10/10/10)

2010-10-17T21:47:00.000-04:00

Towpath 1/2 Marathon & 10K – October 10, 2010 (10/10/10)

Today we (myself, wife & daughter) ran the Towpath 1/2 Marathon and 10K.

This is the longest-running race for me. I started in 2002 with my first 5K. In 2003 I did a relay Marathon (there was no half). In 2004 I ran my first marathon (3:55) and repeated this for 2005 (3:45), 2006 (3:36), 2007 (3:42), 2008 (3:37). Last year I ran the half (1:32:16).

This year I also ran the half, in preparation for the Athens Marathon in 3 weeks. Liz decided to run the 10K in preparation for her Athens 10K. Lea thought it would be a good idea to run a 10K on 10/10/10. Here is Liz eager to go at the start line:

And here is a picture of the real start line:

The race is point to point, starts downhill and then, after mile 3, it enters the Towpath. The surface of the Towpath is crushed limestone. This for me is slower than running in roads because of less friction, even though it is totally flat. Here is a picture from the Towpath section:

Mile splits: 6:39, 6:52, 6:54 6:59, 7:02, 7:06, 7:05. 7:05, 7:14, 7:17, 7:27, 7:29, 7:19, 6:30 (last .18 according to my Garmin). Looks like I slowed down progressively. I remember my legs hurting (quads) and struggling to keep a fast pace.

Final time: 1:33:45.

This is a minute and a half slower than last year. I compared the times and the difference in time is due to miles 9-13 where this year I slowed down to almost 7:30 min/mile, while last year I had kept a pace closer to 7:05-7:10.

The good news is that, like last year, I won first place in my age group! Here I am picking up my award (a nice framed print of the Towpath in Fall colors):

Liz (running the 10K) was also slower, compared to last year, 54:46 (last year she had 52:10, a PR that still stands). Unfortunately, she finished 4th in her age group (last year was first).

Lea ran the 10K in 1:02. This was a very good time for her, faster than the sum of her last two 5Ks. She said "I found out that I do better if I don't run at all!" (she is too busy with school to run during the week).

Anyway, the weather was nearly perfect (started at 50F and then warmed up nicely 70F) and we all had a good time. Liz is considering making this race her first Marathon in 2011. Here is a picture of the first place finisher of the Marathon, just before turning to the finish:

Akron Marathon, September 25, 2010

2010-10-17T21:19:00.000-04:00

Akron Marathon, September 25, 2010

Just like last year, I ran the Akron marathon (my 3rd Akron marathon in a row) as practice for the Athens (Greece) Marathon, which is in 5 weeks. The weather was cool (65F) and dry. Liz ran the half (her first Akron race). We saw this as a little adventure. We arrived a bit early and had our pictures taken inside the Stadium with the Finish in the back. It was dark at 6:30am:

My time goal was 3:40. I decided to follow the 3:40 pace group. The pacer was my friend Jamie. Here is a picture while waiting for the race to start:

The race started exactly at 7am. The first 11 miles are in city streets and I followed the pace group. My mile splits (from the Garmin): 8:53, 8:17, 8:18, 8:15, 8:13, 8:07, 8:25, 8:23, 8:05, 8:22, 8:04. Here we are crossing the Start Line at around mile 10:

The next 4 miles are in the Towpath (crushed limestone surface): 8:10, 8:14, 8:15, 8:15.

We exited the Towpath at mile 15. The next 3 miles are the hardest part of the course, running in park with lots of uphills, but I felt strong and started passing people: 8:21, 8:10, 8:14.

After exiting the park at mile 18, I am usually tired and reach a low in miles 20-22. This time however I felt strong and my pace actually increased and lost touch with the pace group. Miles 19-22: 8:06, 8:10, 8:12, 8:10.

The last 4 miles were surprisingly fast (going downhill on South Market definitely helps!) 8:03, 7:56, 7:16, 7:26, and the last .2 (.35 according to the Garmin): 6:49! Talking about negative splits! It really feels great to finish strong in a marathon when people around you are struggling :)

My final time: 3:35. This was my second marathon this year. In Cleveland in Spring I did 3:19 (big time PR)). My goal for Athens, a very hard course, is 3:25. I am pleased with the strong run in Akron and I think I am mostly ready for Athens.

Liz, ran the half. She said she did not care, running for practice and fun, but she ended up with a PR! (I think running relaxed helps her). Her time: 2:04. She will be running the 10K in Athens.

River Run 1/2M – September 12, 2010

2010-10-17T20:16:00.000-04:00

River Run 1/2M – September 12, 2010

This was my 5th race in 5 weeks and the 3rd half marathon in a row. It was also the fastest! (expected, because the course is point-to-point and mostly downhill).

I did not follow any particular strategy and do not have any memories or anything of interest to write about this race. Just fast running from start to finish. I am pleased with my very even pace.

Mile splits: 6:48, 6:57, 6:48, 6:45, 6:46, 6:46, 6:56, 6:52, 6:52, 6:56, 6:56, 6:42, 6:51, 6:34 (last 0.1).

I finished at 1:30:07 (previous PR from last year, same race, 1:31:16). I finished 5th in my age group (in the previous or next age group I would have been 3rd).

Liz also ran the half. Her time, 2:05:08, was also a PR by 42 seconds from the half we ran 2 weeks ago. She is telling me that she did not enjoy the race. She was hoping to do better and it felt hard.

I am planning to run this race again last year and this time I hope to break 1:30!!

Leave No Trace Trail 1/2M – September 10, 2010

2010-10-17T20:00:00.000-04:00

Leave No Trace Trail 1/2M – September 10, 2010

I saw a notice (in Facebook, I think) about this inaugural trail race and decided to sign up since it was on a “free” weekend. The race was organized by Jim Cheney, and started at Camp Manatoc, off Truxell road (off Akron Peninsula).

The weather was great, dry and cool in the morning (60F). The course was a bit tough, not so much for inclines but mostly uneven with lots of roots. I managed not to fall down even once! (One lady after the race, with lots of dirt in her legs, looked at me with surprise and asked "you did not fall???").

The same trails are used for mountain bikes and there was a big mountain bike race taking place later that day.

I started by positioning myself at about 25th place (from 76 runners) and gradually worked my way to the front. My mile splits: 8:14, 8:08, 8:02. By mile 3 I was in a group of 4 runners and we were catching and passing other runners. Then: 8:57, 8:20, 8:09. 8:41, 8:58, 9:05, 8:27, 8:21, 8:13, 8:29.

For the longest time I was running behind a guy with a bandana in his head (from the results I see his name is David Novak) and quite a bit behind us was an Indian fellow (Suneel Apte). I thought we were going to finish in this order, but the Indian guy caught up with us and he passed me at about mile 13. At this point I found the energy to do a "surge" and passed both guys, storming for the finish line. Since we were at mile 13, I thought I only had 0.2 miles to go. But the course was longer, closer to 14 miles, so this mile was endless. I was embarrassed to get passed by these guys, after my little surge, so I kept pushing.

Just before the finish, I caught and passed another runner (Scott Hallett) and finished strong at 1:57:09, in 11th place overall. I was the first runner over 50 (next older runner ahead was 43). The results are here: http://www.chaneyevents.com/

Overall, it was a tough race but I will be happy to do it again next year!

Buckeye 1/2M – August 29, 2010

2010-10-17T19:46:00.000-04:00

Buckeye 1/2M – August 29, 2010

I was not planning to run the Buckeye ½ Marathon this year, thinking it was the same weekend as the River Run. But this year it was earlier and Liz suggested that we run it. This was her first race, a 5K three years ago.

This race is sponsored by our running club with lots of competition and fast times. The day was nearly perfect for running. Cool, sunny but shaded, low humidity.

The day before the race I ran a 20 miler training run at 8:15 pace so I did not think I would do well in this half. I saw it more as a tempo run. Here is a picture at the start line (on Riverview Road):

I decided to follow the 1:35 pace leader (Lloyd Thomas, 7:15 pace) thinking that I will drop back after I get tired. The first three miles were as follows: 7:21, 7:02, 7:12.

After mile 3 I pulled ahead from the pace group, thinking that they will catch up with me later. I was running comfortably at the time. But I found myself going faster and faster, passing runner after runner and feeling very strong, until the end. Splits: 7:09, 7:07, 6:55, 7:02, 7:05, 7:05, 6:53, 7:03, 7:01, 7:00, 6:43 (last 0.1).

Final time: 1:33:14.

This was good for 68/502 overall and 7/37 in my age group (50-54).

I was very pleased with my effort! Instead of feeling tired and heavy from yesterday's 20 mile run, I felt very strong. My time is my 5th best 1/2 time. My PR (1:31:16) and best 3 times are from last year.

Liz (last picture above) finished with a new PR, 2:05:50 (9:37 pace), 7/17 in her age group (50-54). She was pleased with her effort. She has decided that if she does not care for a race, like this one, she does well.

One comment about the race organization: The volunteers and crowd support was great, but they ran out of water cups (I had to open my mouth to pour warm water in the last aid station), the only liquid during and after the race was water, and the only food after the race was pasta (no salad, no fruits???) Is this the result of some kind of cost-cutting effort?

Well, I ate 5 plates of pasta.

Xterra – Oak Hill 5M, August 21, 2010

2010-10-17T17:42:00.000-04:00

Xterra – Oak Hill 5M, August 21, 2010

This is a trail race, the 2nd in this series for me. It took place in trails off Oak Hill Road. I was not familiar with these trails.

Here is something that has never happened before to me: I was under the impression that this was a 10K race (6.2 miles). So when people started pushing hard around mile 4.5, I was laughing, thinking “fools, there is still plenty of time”. And then, I saw the finish line and realized that I was the fool! The race was 5 miles. If I knew that, I could have pushed hard too and finished a couple of places ahead.

My final time: 35:53 (pace of 7:11, rather fast for trails but these trails were not too challenging). I finished 14/53 (a small race) and 3rd in my age group.

Here is a clearly staged picture at the finish line:

Liz went for a road training run and met me at the finish. I took a picture of both of us with my new Aiptek 3d camera. All the pictures I am showing in these blogs since last October are taken with a stereo camera so they are one half of the stereo pair.

Perfect 10 Miler – August 15, 2010

2010-10-17T17:18:00.000-04:00

Perfect 10 Miler – August 15, 2010

This race is becoming a tradition. 4th time for me, 2nd for Liz.

The weather was hot and humid, but it was overcast. I knew I could not beat last year’s time of 1:08:51, but was determined to do my best, even though I know I am not in as good shape as last year (last year I was 159 lbs, this year 167 lbs, just one factor).

My mile splits (first 4 miles are rather flat):

Mile 1: 6:43
Mile 2: 6:50
Mile 3: 6:44
Mile 4: 6:56
Mile 5: 7:05 (uphill)
Mile 6: 7:14 (uphill)
Mile 7: 6:50 (downhill)

Up to mile 7 I was doing well. I was actually ahead of Michele (a friend who is much better runner) at this point. But the last 3 miles were a torture. I slowed down, passed by about 10 runners (including Michele) and struggled to finish. This is reflected by my mile splits in the last three miles:

Mile 8: 7:08
Mile 9: 7:20
Mile 10: 7:12

My final time was 1:09:34. I finished 43/621 overall and 4/30 in my age group. That's not too bad overall, but it would be nice if I could keep up a 7 min/mile pace for the last 3 miles.

Liz improved her time from last year by 2 minutes. Her final time is 1:34:15 and finished 12/25 in her age group (a bit surprising, last year she was 4th in her age group with a slower time)

Independence 5K – August 7, 2010

2010-10-17T17:02:00.000-04:00

Independence 5K – August 7, 2010

The Independence 5K is for me one of the longest-running races. I first ran it in 2003. My time was 20:26. Then again in 2004 (20:12) and 2005 (20:06). This was my PR in 5K until last year. I skipped a couple of years and returned in 2009 with a 19:31 (2nd best 5K time). So, I was looking forward to a good race, plus this is part of the Hermes series and Liz and I needed to do well.

After a short warm-up with Liz, we took our place at the start line, and off we go.

Mile splits: 6:08, 6:36, 6:29, 5:56 (last .1)

I finished in 19:39, 29/335 overall and 1st/15 in my age group! This is the first 5K this year (and the 3rd ever) where I "break" 20 minutes. I was also first in the Hermes series.

Liz finished in 26:25, 2nd/10 in her age group. Here is a picture of Liz at the finish stretch:

We stayed for the awards and enjoyed the DJ, same guy every year, very entertaining:

And here am I, proudly holding my award:

Muddy Paws 5M – July 24, 2010

2010-10-17T16:45:00.000-04:00

Muddy Paws 5M – July 24, 2010

I ran Muddy Paws 10M trail race last year and enjoyed it. This year I even managed to talk Liz into running it (her first trail race!) Here is Liz picking up our registrations:

And here are pictures of both of us:

Well, I was planning to run the 10 miler but went out too fast and stopped at 5. My time was 39:33, a 7:55 pace, very good for these trails. I finished 5/133 and first in my age group (50-59).

Liz finished at 59:29, 68/133, and 1st in her age group:

Broadview Heights 5K - July 11, 2010

2010-10-17T16:28:00.000-04:00

Broadview Heights 5K - July 11, 2010

The morning after a hard afternoon “Winking Lizard” 4 miler race, I went to neighboring city, Broadview Heights, to run a 5K. I went alone because Liz was leaving for a business trip. I wanted to run this race because this is where I made my 5K PR last year with 19:19. I was curious to see if I could get close to this time again this year.

Well, not even close! My time was 20:26, but I managed to finish 8th/139 overall and first 1/12 in my age group.

Well, I can blame my tired legs from the race the previous day, but I definitely I am not in the running shape I was this time last year.

Next week I am going to the NSA convention in Huron OH, and will miss my favorite race, the Buckeye 50K. Oh well... Next year.

Winking Lizard 4M - July 10, 2010

2010-10-17T16:15:00.000-04:00

Winking Lizard July 10, 2010

This is a new race for me. We decided to run it the last minute because it is part of the Hermes Road Racing series.

The official name is Winking Lizard "A Shot in the Dark". The 4 mile race is downtown and starts at 5pm so it is not exactly dark. As a matter of fact the day was sunny, very bright and very hot.

The atmosphere is a bit of a party. Here is a picture before the start. Some people were drinking even before the race started.

And a picture after the race. Both Liz and I liked the retro outfit of this guy:

In addition to the 4 mile race, there is a 2 mile Family Fun Run & Walk that starts first. Here is a picture of the start of this race:

All I remember now about the race is that it was hot and was very happy to see the first water stop around mile 2. I thought I ran very well. My time was 26:23, which is a 6:41 pace. This was good for 51/1280 overall but only 7th/51 in my age group. I secretly hoped for an award but I was not even close. A new guy in the Hermes series finished ahead of me.

Liz finished at 36:19 (9:05 pace), 5/25 in her age group.

After the race we went to the car to change, and then back for the party! It was actually very nice with the sun setting, everyone enjoyed a cold drink, while waiting for the awards. Here is Liz waiting on line to get me a beer:

At some point they were throwing gifts (like T-shirts) from the roof of a building, just like they do in basketball games:

Overall, we had a good time, and will definitely do this again next year!

KentFest 10K - July 10, 2010

2010-10-17T15:28:00.000-04:00

I have been desperately behind my blogs but I promised my wife to catch up this weekend, so here we go...

My wife and I went to this very small race in Kent... I discovered this race in 2003 (first year of racing). I think I picked up an entry from from another race. They do not have a web site or email, and googling the name brings up nothing! But I liked it and kept coming back.

2003 - 45:07 - First age group (179 lbs)
2004 - 43:01 - First age group (171 lbs)
2005 - 42:45 - PR, 1st age group (175 lbs)
2006 - 43:37 - 4th overall (175 lbs)
2007 - 41:20 - PR, 4th overall (168 lbs)

Every year the race was getting smaller and smaller... To the point that I was getting an overall placement award! And every year Steve Godale ("the guy with the long hair") was winning.

I missed it in 2008 and it was not done in 2009 so I thought it was over. So I was surprised to get an entry form in the mail for 2010! I told my wife to come because it is a small race and they give 5 first place awards, so everyone gets something and most likely she can get an overall place award (certainly if there are 5 women or less!)

There were only 7 women this year and about 25 men (see picture above from the starting line, Steve is the 2nd guy from the right).

It was sunny and 70s. I ran as fast as I could. Mile splits: 6:40, 6:48, 6:44, 6:47, 6:53, 6:57. Early on, I got in 4th place, but in the last 1/2 mile I got passed by a guy, who had more left than me, so I finished 5th overall. My time was very close to my 2007 time, only 6 seconds slower:

2010 - 41:26 - 5th overall (163 lbs)

It is interesting that in 3 years I have lost a bit of weight but I have maintaining my speed (give or take) as I get older.

My wife's time (seen above at the finish) was 56:30 and finished 3rd overall (see picture below, her trophy is taller than mine!!)

Steve Godale finished second! (he has been winning since 1999).

While waiting for the awards, they raffled coupons from local establishments. Since the race is so small, everyone got at least 3 coupons. And everyone got an award in the end!

Driving back, we stopped at the coupon places and got an almost free pizza and subway sandwich. We had a blast! We plan to come back next year and keep this race alive!

Brecksville 5K - 2010

2010-06-27T19:21:00.001-04:00

Brecksville 5K

This is an inaugural race in our home town and as such we could not miss it! Since 2000 that I have been running there has only been a Bees 5K cross country race (started in 2003) and there was one lonely 5K race in August 2005 called Bull 5K. (In that race I finished first in my age group with 21:20 and 8th overall).

Now, they are starting a new 5K race in connection to Brecksville Days (usually around July 4th weekend). The race is organized by Hermes so we knew it was going to be conducted well. Liz and I signed up for this, even though there was another Hermes race which counts for the Road Race series. We decided to support our home town vs. improving our standings.

The race started at 9:00 am, a bit late for this time of the year. The temperature was around 80F and sunny, not the best weather for running, but, as I told Liz, it is only a 5K. A few clouds covered the sun for most of the race. Here is a picture of Liz looking very happy at the start (she would look very different half an hour later):

The start was on Brecksville Road and the finish was also on Brecksville Road but a but further. The route goes down on Brecksville road, turn behind the Middle school, up Highland Road, then turn on Oaks to Brecksville and down Brecksville Road to the finish. The course is not flat. Has some hills in the first 2 miles and finishes downhill. Here is a picture of the lineup at the start:

I started OK, passed a bunch of people, then kept my position for the hard 2nd mile, and tried to run fast the last mile downhill. I only passed one runner at the finish line but got passed by another one.

My mile splits: 6:43, 7:23, 6:16. Final time: 20:35.

This is good and I am pleased, considering that: 1) The course is not flat, 2) My legs were a bit tired from yesterday’s race (not to mention Mohican 50) In a flat course and with fresh legs, I believe I could have dropped under 20 minutes (my perpetual goal).

I ran with my Fuji 3d camera and waited for Liz to finish. She finished at 27:17, rather slow but predicted for the difficulty of the course. Liz, as always in the heat, was like she had a stroke at the finish and afterwards. I am a bit worried about this. She cannot talk and she really looks like she is having a stroke. Maybe she is trying too hard. It takes her about 30 minutes to recover afterwards.

Here are two pictures from other finishers. This was a race for the entire family!

There was no timing chip so it took a while to enter the results in the computer. We stayed for the awards, very nicely given by Mayor Hurby. The post-race snacks were excellent (fresh bagels, bottled energy drinks, etc). Here is a picture of the Mayor and race officials:

I ended up with a first place age group award! Fellow Brecksville resident Mark Spencer also won first place in his age group. Here is a picture of the two of us with our hardware:

Overall, a fun day. We will certainly do it again next year.

Next race for us: Kent 10K. This is a race I have run continuously since 2003 but missed it the last two years. I thought that the race has been cancelled because it was getting smaller and smaller, so I was surprised to get an entry form in the mail. This is the course where I have my 10K PR of 41:20 from 2007. Looks unlikely that I will improve it, but I will give it my best shot.

XTERRA - Chapin Forest - 5 Mile Race

2010-06-27T19:09:00.000-04:00

XTERRA - Xterra Trail Run
Ohio Series - Chapin Forest - 5 Miles
June 26th, 2010

I heard about this race from Laurie via Facebook. It is a 5 mile trail race. Sounded like fun, so I decided to try it. This is part of the XTERRA Ohio Trail races. There are 5 total races. This race was in Kirtland, about 40 minutes driving from my house. Of course, I got lost because the directions were sending me to the aid station instead of the start, but I managed to find my way to the start in time to register (for this and the August 21 race, also 5 miles at Oak Hill in Boston Township, closer to home). Vince was the race director and here he is giving the last instructions before the start at 8 am.

The weather was just about perfect, and the course dry. There were mild uphils, downhills, rocky surfaces, short technical parts, soft trails, etc. I ran as fast as I could and passed several runners. My mile splits: 8:03, 6:53 (!), 7:38, 8:06, 7:09. My Garmin showed the course to be a bit short. My official time was 36:31 (7:19 pace, not bad for trails!). Timing for this race was done by Jim Chaney. Results were up the same day.

After the race Dan said that I must be the first Masters runner. I finished 11th (out of 73 runners) but I was the 3rd runner 50 and older! The 2nd and 5th place runners were 50 years old! I ended up getting 2nd place for 50 and older. My award was a nice XTERRA hat (I can use a hat!)

Laurie did well too, winning 2nd place in her age group. But she was a bit slower than usual. Her husband, Radames, actually finished ahead of her, for the first time ever (I understand). Here is a picture of him. Click at the picture to see his big smile. Laurie is seen in the back.

Overall, it was fun and I am happy with my time!

Mohican 50 Aftermath

2010-06-27T17:32:00.005-04:00

The results are out! I am listed in 9th place overall with 9:54:28, exactly one minute behind Laurie, and 25 minutes ahead of the next runner. Somehow my time is 4 minutes shorter (I thought I finished at 9:58:28) but this does not affect anything. I am very proud that I am actually the first runner 50 years or older (there are two 40+ year old runners ahead of me, the first male and first female – the rest are under 40). Here are the top 10 finishers:

Place Name Age State Gender Time
1 Jay Smithberger 40 OH M 7:55:00
2 Marc Melville 36 MI M 8:05:38
3 Troy Shellhamer 29 KY M 8:22:38
4 Luke Riley 38 PA M 9:13:33
5 Jacob Draa 21 OH M 9:36:36
6 Kimberly Boner 42 OH F 9:43:14
7 Juan Vicente 35 OH M 9:52:09
8 Laurie Colon 32 OH F 9:53:28
9 George Themelis 50 OH M 9:54:28
10 Mark Chaloupka 46 OH M 10:19:22

I still cannot believe how well I did in my first 50 miler. But what surprised me the most is that it did not feel very hard and recovery was quick. Sure, the last miles were a struggle, and when I was done I did not think I could have gone any farther (the thought of running 100 miles was mind-blowing at the time), but the next day I felt fine (except for a few blisters in my toes). I did a tempo run on Wednesday (7:30 pace) and ran two races on Saturday and Sunday with good results.

So, now I am looking back at this race with fond memories. The entire week I have been feeling very happy and proud for my accomplishment. I do not remember the last time I felt like that. Certainly not after the first BT50K race, even though I had a terrific time then too.

Here are a few things that bothered me slightly. Consider them suggestions for improvement:

1. Course description on-line is not detailed. A better description was given at the prerace meeting the night before the race. I wish someone had told me about the 3 river crossings from Bridle Staging to Rock Point. And that from Rock Point to Buckhaven is mostly roads. I would have then changed from trail to regular road shoes at the Rock Point station and then back to trails shoes at the same station.

2. Aid Station Drop Bags: I only had one drop bag and dropped it at the Covered Bridge aid station. I thought this made sense since I visited this aid station 3 times. But, they said, you cannot use the drop bag the first two times (miles 5 and 9) because of congestion. I like to change shirts after the first 5-10 miles after I shed the most sweat, but I was not allowed. What is the point of having a drop bag at Covered Bridge if you cannot use it until the 3rd time when there is already crew access at the Fire Tower aid station before that? I did not use my Covered Bridge drop bag. A total waste. I wish someone had advised me about this.

3. Aid Stations: The Aid Station volunteers were all very nice of course, but I felt a bit strange about the food being covered in some aid stations. Also, the workers did not seem geared towards a runner in a hurry. Typical dialog between myself and an older female aid station worker: “What would you like honey?” “Well, what do you have?” I was expecting to just grab things in front of me, but they were not very accessible. In one aid station I asked for potato chips and they pointed to a sealed bag. Is it too hard to open the bag? In the same aid station I saw sliced bread but nothing to go on it. As the race went on, I got more aggressive and started opening bags, Tupperware and pop bottles (surprisingly, in the last aid station, all pop bottles were sealed). I read from a fellow blogger (saw pictures too) about runners eating ham and cheese sandwiches and boiled eggs. I don’t know where they found these. No ham and cheese where I was, unless if it was sealed and stored under the table.

4. Finisher's Medal: After I got to the hotel, I read in the instructions that there was a finisher’s medal (which I did not get at the finish). The next day Tom confirmed that there is indeed a finisher’s medal and I went to get it. “Why didn’t you ask for it when you finished yesterday?” the old lady asked. Well, sorry, but all races I have done with finisher’s medal, this is handed to you when you finish. I never had to go ask for it.

5. The Award’s ceremony was listed as starting at 10:00 am on Saturday but it started at 12:00 noon. Now, I understand that people have been running for 24 to 30 hours, so no one is in any particular hurry, but if the awards start at 12 noon (last finisher is done by 11 am), why tell people they start at 10? I could have slept longer, taken a longer hike in the morning and eaten breakfast at the Lodge without pressure.

6. Awards. The main focus of this event is the 100 mile race. The 50 mile race is like an afterthought. This is reflected in the awards. The only awards given for 50 milers are the 3 first places (male and female), while the 100 milers also get age group awards. I think they should give first place in each age group or Master and Grandmaster awards in the 50 milers for the benefit of the older runners (like myself!) who have no chance for the top 3 overall spots.

Well, this is it! Overall, it was fun and I am eager to do more long trail runs in the future! A very positive experience.

Mohican 50 2010 - Race report

2010-06-21T13:36:00.001-04:00

Background:

I got the idea for the Mohican 50 from Sensationally Red's blog. Since I cannot do my favorite race, the Buckeye Trail (BT) 50K this year (same time as the NSA convention in Ohio) I thought the Mohican 50 miler would be a good idea. Plus, I always wanted to move to longer trail runs and eventually do the “Burning River” 100 miler in Cleveland and, ultimately, the Spartathlon (160 miles) in Greece. So 50 miles is the perfect first stepping stone from a 50K (31 miles) to 100 miles.

Training was so-and-so. It took me 2 weeks to recover from the Cleveland Marathon and resume trail-running. Three weeks before Mohican I did my first long run of 21 miles. This did not go very well and I considered cancelling Mohican. Father’s Day weekend, Garrison Keillor is in town, Jim Klett 10K, etc., plenty of reasons to stay home.

Two weeks before Mohican I did 31 miles. This run went OK, plus last week (a week before the race) I did 11 miles in the trail reasonably fast which boosted my confidence, so Mohican was in. But, in the end, I did not feel nearly as good or fit as last year before running the BT 50K in July.

Because this was my first run over 31 miles, I had no expectations. But after talking to a few friends who told me that the Mohican course is hard, I revised the goal to 12 hours. But the main goal was to finish without any real expectations beyond that.

Liz (wife & support crew - see picture of both of us above) and I arrived at Mohican Friday 7pm for the prerace meeting. We then went to our room at Mohican Lodge, some 10 miles from the start. I slept very little, got up, dressed, ate little (unusual for me) and headed for the race.

At 4:00 am the temperature was 68F. Looked like it was going to be a "survival race" in a hot day. Lined up at the start and at 5:00 pitch dark, off we went.

Miles 1-10

After a short all-purpose path, we turned into the first trail. Mistake #1: I did not have a light, thinking that natural light will come out soon. I could barely see where I was stepping for the first 5 miles in difficult single-file trail running.

The next "purple trail" was a 4 mile loop. This is supposedly the most difficult trail since it had some creek crossings and two parts where you climb up or down using both hands. Even though technically difficult for running, all runners walked/crawled the hard parts so it did not feel difficult. Here are two pictures from this trail. Hand-climbing on the left. The little Falls after a difficult but short descent:

Miles 10-20:

After a short 2.7 mile section, we arrived at the Bridle Staging aid station. This was one of the few aid stations open to support crews (family & friends). Knowing that a long 7.3 mile section follows, I tried to hydrate & eat well.

The next 7.3 miles were mostly on horse trails. This was my best trail! I passed at least 12 runners in this section, including the leading female runner (Kim). Here is a picture I took while running behind Kim. I was carrying my Fuji 3d camera with me for the first half, until I handed it to Liz to carry:

I also discovered something that surprised me: Up this point I thought that my main strength is downhill running (the steeper the downhill, the better), but now I am seeing that my strength is actually uphill running or fast walking. I passed most runners during uphills either by running or just walking quickly.

While we were maybe 2 miles into the trail, we reached our first river crossing. I looked around but there were no "stepping stones". We had to just walk through the water. I have never seen anything like this around my area. Two more river crossings and we arrived at the "Rock Point" aid station. I see a lot of "drop bags" in this station. Clever runners who knew about the river crossings are changing shoes at this point. But I was clueless. Here is a picture of runners crossing one river:

Miles 20-30

We now get into a section with mainly country roads going up and down. Very steep! I passed a couple of runners here too. Here is a picture that I took in this section. It looks flat but it is really an optical illusion. I was going down a downhill, facing a very speep uphill:

Finally, we arrive at a road, designated as HL1 (Handler Location #1). This is not an aid station but runner's crews (family & friends) are allowed to park along the road to meet their runners. As I arrive at this section, people are clapping and cheering and I feel really good! It is at this point when I first realized how well I was doing, when Liz told me that I am at the top 10!!!

We continue mainly on hilly asphalt roads until we reach a trail, enter and after a short distance, reach the Buckhaven aid station which is the turn-around point for 50 mile runners. I return back to the road with the cars and now change shirt, shocks, put plenty of Vaseline in my toes, new shoes, drink water, etc. I leave the car feeling like a new man! My feet were starting to develop blisters but now they feel fine.

Miles 30-40:

I now enter a 4.3 mile horse trail running alone. After a couple of miles, I am sick and tired of this trail. It is muddy, the kind of deep mud that you step in and pull your leg out, only to leave your shoe in the mud. I start to struggle. I am walking...

To make things worse, I see a guy coming from behind. He looks fresh and happy (this is really demoralizing to see). I ask "Aren't you tired of this f---ing horse trail?" He says "yes" but he really does not look like he is tired. He passes me easily.

Thankfully, the surface changes and I am able to run again and try to keep this guy within reach. His name is Tom and he is from Macedonia. This is his first 50 miler.

Tom pulls ahead. We now arrive at a downhill part of the course, with large rocks, which make it impossible to run. And here comes a female runner, looking very fresh and happy (another demoralizing blow) passing me.

OK, I am thinking... Two runners passed me, what is next?

What happened next was a change of events. We all three arrive at about the same time at the South Park aid station. I drink water, pop, and stuff some trail mix in my pocket.

The girl, dressed in all-black, leaves the station first. Tom follows. I go last, thinking that I have no chance to catch these guys. And here is how things change: I eat my trail mix and feel better. We hit some difficult uphill sections. We are all walking, only I am walking faster. I catch up with Tom and the girl. The uphill ends but Tom is still walking. "Shouldn't you be running?" I ask. "There will be plenty of time to run" he replies. Well, that's the last time I saw Tom in the trails.

So, now I am running with the girl. She is the leading female runner and looks strong. Her name (as I found later) is Laurie, she is 36 (looked much younger) and it is her first 50 miler.

We are at about mile 33. I ended up running with her until the end. This story repeated itself many times: She passes me at the downhills and aid stations (she spends no time at aid stations). I pass her back at the uphills. Most of the time I am leading and she is following, but we alternate many times. When I thought I lost her (behind), she would come back at the aid station and pass me. Basically, I could not get rid of her :) And a good thing, because she is the reason I did so well.

If you are running alone, and you are tired, you will slow down. Running with another runner motivates you to keep running. If you are running behind, you try to keep up. If you are leading, you don’t want to slow down and get passed. It is always good to run with someone of equal running ability and develop a bit of friendly running rivalry during the race.

We arrived at the Fire Tower Aid station, one of the few with crew access. I am looking for Liz, when I hear her yelling, "I am coming". Here, I am expecting her to quickly supply me with food and liquids, and she is up the Fire Tower taking pictures!! When she got down, she snapped this picture of me eating watermelon at the aid station:

By the time we are done, two things have happened: Laurie has left ahead, and the second female runner, Kim, has caught up with her. I am hurrying to join the fun.

Last 10 miles:

We arrive at the Covered Bridge station with about 11 miles left to go, and with one aid station in the middle. We were warned that the first miles are very difficult with steep ascent and that we will be happy to reach the aid station.

Kim is leading the way, followed by Laurie and myself. Looks like Kim is increasing the lead, impossible to stop at this point. I catch up and pass Laurie at some point in this very difficult ascent.

The trail gets better later on. As I am getting low on water and it is getting warm too, I see Liz waiting at a road crossing, with my camera ready to take a picture. My clever wife looked at the map and figured out that we were crossing the road at this point. Even though this was not designated as a "crew access" point, she parked the car, waiting for me. She took this picture of me, emerging from the trail:

To my eyes, she is an angel. After saying a few sweet words, I started yelling at her to drop the camera and bring the supplies!!! I poured cold water over my head, drank Gatorade and filled my water bottle. While this is happening, here comes Laurie, to pass me! Aggghhhr! I kissed Liz to head back in the trail. I pass Laurie again. I heard her yelling at some point but did not turn to see what was happening. A few seconds later I trip and fall (first and only fall in this race). As I get up, I hear Laurie saying “Are you OK? The same exactly thing happened to me just a moment ago.” Great!

The adventure continues. In this race I zeroed my watch in every aid station so I knew exactly how long before the next aid station. Usually the aid stations come sooner than expected, maybe because the watch is losing GPS signal or maybe the up/down hills make the GPS measured distance look shorter. But this aid station is an exception. We are past 5.5 miles and no sign of an aid station (should be at 5.3 miles). I am getting worried. Did I take a wrong turn and got off track somehow? I look behind to make sure Laurie is following. I ask her if the aid station is coming up soon, and she says that she is out of water and it better come soon. At this point I feel guilty because I have water (from Liz) plus I use it to wash my face and pour it over my head !

FINALLY, the last aid station is a welcome relief. I get plenty of liquids here, plus put ice cubs in my sweat rag and in my head (under my hat). By now it is sunny and warm, but the trails are well-shaded. Laurie claims that she had pop for the first time and felt good. I am amazed because I have been eating and drinking (including pop) in every aid station (lesson learned after my collapse in the last two miles of the BT last year).

We are now in the last leg, 5.7 miles long. The aid station crew has assured us that it is mostly downhill and they are correct. But after 45 miles and 9 hours in the trails, it seems that even downhill running is getting hard. I look at my watch and figure out that, with a bit of luck, I can beat 10 hours. I call Liz to tell her that I just cleared the last aid station and should be arriving in one hour. Liz says "you can do it in less than an hour". I am a bit annoyed... I felt like saying "do you want to run 45 miles and then see how fast you can run the last 5 miles?" but I keep my mouth shut.

Starting around mile 12 from the finish, I noticed signs counting the miles left. At first, I was not sure that this was accurate. But now I am certain that when it says "5 MILES TO FINISH" it is actually correct for our race. Laurie lets out a happy cry every time she sees this sign. Being a faster downhill runner, she has now taken the lead, but I am sticking behind. I thought we could settle our "duel" in the last 100 yards (in which case she would definitely lose, because I have a very strong kick, being 5K or 50 miles, makes no difference). However, by the time we hit 2 miles from the finish, Laurie is pulling ahead and I am unable to catch up.

At this point I see two runners. I think that they coming from behind, which is very annoying (at this point, I am in 9th place and I really want to finish 9th). So I am trying to push hard to move ahead. Later, I realize that these guys are actually ahead of us. I think Laurie could catch them. I will just stay and finish 9th. I then try to pee and I am worried with what I see (dark & smelly, I will spear you the details). I am glad this is almost over.

With one mile left, I see my guardian angel, Liz, coming to meet me. We talked about her running from the finish in the reverse direction to meet me, but made no definite plans, and here she is! And she is taking a picture of me:

I urge her to run ahead to take a picture of me at the finish. She replies that there is really no clock at the finish and we can stage a "photo finish" after the fact.

From time to time, I stop to walk (of course!) and Liz asks "are you OK?" "Of course I am OK, this is part of the plan you silly!" Finally, we exit the trail. At this point I am just looking for the finish line, not paying attention to markings, just having Liz guide me through a few confusing turns. I am looking at my GPS time: 9:58. I better hurry, I have less than 2 minutes left!

I sprint to the finish! Clearly, under 10 hours! After the fact, we staged the picture I posted in the previous blog. The actual finish direction was from the other side, in which case you would see my back, but this picture is perfect.

After the Race:

The torture is over, mission accomplished, etc., etc. After the race I need to take my shoes off. I feel I have some blisters, and I am stiff and move slowly, but otherwise sound and solid. Liz had the fine idea to go into the river nearby to cool down, which I did, but the water was not cold enough:

We stayed around for a while, and then headed back to our room. I took a cold ice bath and felt better. We then went for dinner and a short walk.

Next Day

The next day Liz got up at 7 am for a run, and I walked around a local trail (you'd think that I had enough trails for a while, wouldn't you?) After breakfast ("all you can eat" buffet at the Mohican Lodge, a dangerous meal to serve ultra runners - I had at least 3 plates) we went to the award's ceremony.

As it turns out, this race is geared mainly towards the 100 miles, with the 50 miles being a bit of an afterthought. The only awards for 50 miles are for the first three male and female winners. The 100 milers get awards per age group and even an award for the runner who finished LAST, called the "Last of the Mohican" award.

Here is a picture of all award winners. 100 milers at the top, 50 milers at the bottom (many 50 milers had left already, since their race was done the previous day):

Final Thoughts

Overall, this was a very positive experience. I completed my first 50 mile trail run without any serious difficulties. The weather cooperated with cloudy skies and cooler (70s) temperatures and even some rain early on. The sun came out and got warmer around noon, but by this time we were in deep woods and closer to the finish.

Surprisingly, after the race I had very little muscle pain. For some time my theory had been that trail running is easier for the body. I have had more pain the days after the "Perfect 10 miler" where I set my 10 mile PR, than the 50K Buckeye Trail. But last year I actually raced (= ran as fast as I could) the 50K BT and then I was sore for a week, so I am back to the old cliché: "It is not the distance but the speed that kills".

The bottom line is that I can do a better time if I ever decide to actually run 50 miles as fast as I can. Or, I could run longer than 50 miles if I run even slower.

Which brings me to the last point: I would really like to run a 100 miler next year. Ideally, I would like to run 100K (62 miles) first, but perhaps I should just bite the bullet and sign up for the 2011 Burning River 100 mile run.

Thanks for reading!

Mohican 50 mile: 9:58 - 9th place overall !!!

2010-06-21T10:18:00.001-04:00

I am still trying to recover from the shock!

I went to run the Mohican 50 miler with average training and zero expectations (aim: 12 hours) I ran the race of my life... By mile 20, I was in 8th place overall. I finished in 9 hr 58 min, in 9th place (out of ~100 starters). I have not seen the results yet but I suspect that the 8 runners ahead of me are all under 40 years old.

I am very happy!!

What's more surprising is that I feel great today. Which is a sign that I did not really push hard. I just ran at a comfortable pace to finish. The weather cooperated (they were expecting temperatures in the 90s but it stayed in the 70s and overcast until noon) So everything went well. As I was told, the course was hard (I knew about the many long uphills, but 4 river crossings knee high?) Other than the rivers, muddy horse trails, endless uphills, etc., the race was rather uneventful. I did not get lost (the trails were very well marked) and only fell once.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience and I think I see a 100 miler in my near future (Burning River next year?)

A full report will follow in a day or two. Stay tuned!

Cleveland Marathon 2010

2010-05-16T18:56:00.005-04:00

The Prefect Race

Me (happy), Liz (not so happy)

As the date was approaching for the Cleveland Marathon, I was getting nervous. For two years in a row I have had my best marathon times in this race: 3:26 in 2008 and 3:22 in 2009. For some reason my body likes this race. So the question now was: Will I be able to PR again?

I had a bad feeling about a PR. First, my training this year has not been very good. Even though I have run a lot of races, I have not done any long distance training runs and no long distance tempo runs (other than the races, up to ½ Marathon). Plus, I have gained a couple of pounds from this time last year.

The last two days before the marathon I did not run, but ate a lot and felt lethargic. In addition to sleeping 8 hours a night (unusual for me) I was taking a couple of naps during the day and I could not concentrate on my work. I also felt like I could not run (sounds familiar?) But on Saturday evening I put on my newer shoes (the ones I had for the Hermes 10 miler) and they felt really good.

I went to bed at 9:30 pm last night and woke up at 3:30 am (the alarm was for 5:00). I took a shower, shaved, put on my light running clothes (the theme this year was “black”), ate a good breakfast, and, with my wife and daughter, headed downtown at 6:00 am.

The temperature at home was 50F. It went up by a few degrees. The forecast for the day was cool (50s to low 60s) and cloudy. It ended up being sunny and beautiful with a nice cooling breeze, really great weather for running.

I decided to join the 3:20 pace group, which was close to the start line. Took a few 3d pictures before the start and at 7:00 exactly, the race was on!

Singing the National Anthem:

Right from the start I saw Michele and ran together with Dan Horvath for a while but they are both faster runners so I let them go ahead.

Michele (orange shirt) at around mile 1 (finished at 3:15)

My first 10 miles were surprisingly fast:

1: 7:33
2: 7:11
3: 7:14
4: 7:07
5: 7:07
6: 7:17
--- 10K Split = 45:01 (7:15 pace!)
7: 7:14
8: 7:12
9: 7:22
10: 7:21

My pace was clearly faster than planned (I never saw the 3:20 pace group, left behind in the “dust”). I had some doubts that maybe I was going faster than I should and will “crash and burn” later, but decided to trust my body and ran with the pace that felt comfortable at the time.

The first 10 miles were touring the West side of Cleveland and they were nice and flat. But then we hit the Shoreway with a long uphill (mile 11 and partially 12), and then downhill by the Rock & Roll museum. The half point split was about there. My times:

11: 7:44
12: 7:36
13: 7:27
-- 13.1 (Half Marathon) Split = 1:36:44 (7:23 pace)

It is interesting that my 5K and 13.1 time splits would have been PRs for these distances just a few years ago. Also, 1:36:44 x 2 = 3:13:28, way too fast. I was expecting to slow down at the 2nd half, but how much?

Miles 14-17 are along a flat & rather boring stretch on Marginal road by Burke Airport, next to the lake. I could tell that I had slowed down, and my time splits show it too:

14: 7:46
15: 7:58
16: 7:51
17: 7:50

Along Marginal Road (not much to see, other than the runner in front :))

Somewhere on mile 17 I got passed by a 46 year old lady, Eileen Meisler. She is a good runner and I have seen her in other races too (I finished ahead of her in the Celebrate Nursing 10K recently). She started the marathon ahead of me but I caught up and passed her around mile 7, and now she is passing me. This was a bit of a “wake up call” to increase my pace. I ran with her for while but then she pulled ahead and finished ahead of me.

The next 4 miles are touring Rockefeller Park, a nice area on East Cleveland. My splits:

18: 7:50
19: 7:47
20: 7:37
21: 7:51

At mile 21 we exited the park and for two miles we ran along St. Clair Avenue towards downtown. These were my best miles in the entire race. I felt really rejuvenated and was running fast and full of energy, maybe seeing downtown Cleveland and knowing that the end was near. It felt as if these were 7 min/miles but they were slower:

22: 7:38
23: 7:37

But I could not keep up this pace. The final 3 miles were a bit of a torture. I had to dig deep into my reserves, but the thought that I was “almost there” gave me the strength I needed to finish. The last mile felt particularly long:

24: 7:58
25: 7:54
26: 7:59
Last 0.2: 7:23

My clock time was 3:20:09 and my chip time was 3:19:45.

Big PR!!

I am ecstatic!

I did not think I would ever be able to run faster than 3:20. Now I am thinking, with more training and minus 10 lbs, I might be able to do 3:15 one day.

In all respects, this was the PERFECT RACE. Everything went well. I cannot find anything to complain about:

- The weather was perfect
- I was well-rested
- I was dressed appropriately (not too warm, not too cold)
- I ate well and only had Gatorade and water during the race
- I did not stop for anything (no need to)
- The shoes felt great
- No pains or problems of any kind
- I like the course and I ran it with confidence
- I slowed down but did not crash in the 2nd half

This was definitely a day for a PR and I am glad I made it!

Ahhh... that free beer feels very good right now!

PS. Liz was a bit disappointed with 2:07:01 for this (her third) half marathon. She felt crowded and could not find her pace. She mentally quit after mile 8 and even walked a bit. With 20,000 people in the roads, it is time for Cleveland to adopt Corals like Boston and other large races have.

Cleveland Marathon next week!

2010-05-09T21:57:00.002-04:00

Saturday morning it was beautiful, despite predictions of rain. I showed up at 7 am at lock 29 and ran with a group of runners I have not run before. One was Dan Horvath. He ran Boston at 3:17 and hopes to run Cleveland a couple of minutes faster.

The run was a bit fast. We did 14 miles. Here are my mile splits: 9:23, 8:51, 8:37, 8:12, 8:05, 7:44, 7:55, 7:46, 7:29, 7:35, 7:38, 7:59, 7:46, 7:52. It is interesting how the pace kept increasing, settling close to what my pace should be for the marathon next week.

Talking about the Cleveland Marathon, this is my 11th marathon. My secret goal is to improve last year’s time and PR of 3:22:47. But any time faster than 3:30 will be fine.

Here are all my Marathon Times:

Year Location Time
1 2004 Towpath 3:55
2 2005 Towpath 3:45
3 2006 Towpath 3:36
4 2007 Towpath 3:42 (walked)
5 2008 Cleveland 3:26
6 2008 Akron 3:29
7 2008 Towpath 3:37
8 2009 Cleveland 3:22 PR
9 2009 Akron 3:38 (training)
10 2009 Athens-Greece 3:28
11 2010 Cleveland

Other news: I have been running to the Brecksville Rec Center twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday. I take the Buckeye trail. I did this last year too, but this time I am running back too! It is 7.3 miles each way. So I run to get there, take the 45 min exercise class and then run back. It is actually a bit easier going back. I leave home around 4:30 pm and come back at 8:00 pm. 3 ½ hours of exercise. I hope these trail miles will get me ready for Mohican 50 miler in June.

Celebrate Nursing 10K

2010-05-01T21:51:00.007-04:00

Celebrate Nursing 10K - 2010

Today (May 1, happy new month!) Liz and I ran the "Celebrate Nursing 10K". This is part of a Road Racing series and it is a small race, so we decided to do it, to get some points. The location on the East Side of Cleveland was easy to get to, the building very nice, and the race well-organized. The weather was warm (70sF) and cloudy.

Here is a picture of Liz before the race:

While waiting on line for the start, I saw a friend who warned me about the course. I thought it was flat, but he told me that it is mostly uphill for the first half, then turns around (and gets downhill). Sure enough, after the first flat 1/2 mile, rather steep hills start. I think my mile splits tell the story:

Mile 1: 7:03
Mile 2: 7:21
Mile 3: 7:18
Mile 4: 7:01
Mile 5: 6:53
Mile 6: 6:40
Last 0.2: 6:49
Average pace: 6:58 - Final time: 43:11
Finished 11/150, and 2/7 in my age group (50-54)

Here is a picture of me picking up my 2nd place award:

I am happy I had the strength to run the downhills fast enough to compensate for the slowing in the uphills (sometimes the legs get tired running uphill and the downhills are slow too. But this did not happen to me.)

Liz had no idea of the uphills and, as she says, she used all her energy in mile 1. I snapped a picture (slightly out of focus) of her after the turn-around point:

Her final time was 56:18 and she finished 5/7 in her age group (50-54).

Now we are waiting to see how many points we got for our Road Racing series (I am first in my age group but quite possibly have placed at the top 5, which gives more points; Liz is 2nd in her age group).

I plan to run a long run tomorrow and then take it easy for2 weeks, getting ready for the Cleveland Marathon on May 16th!

2010 Cleveland 10 Miler

2010-04-25T18:40:00.002-04:00

Cleveland 10 Miler – April 24, 2010

Yesterday, my wife and I ran the Cleveland 10 Miler (http://clevelandtenmiler.com/) I have been running this race since day one (2005) and they even list my name in their web site as part of the 50 or so runners who have run every 10 miler. The first 4 years it was downtown, but starting last year they moved it to Edgewater Park, which makes it an easier course, mostly flat with a bit of elevation loss since it starts at Edgewater's "upper deck" and ends at the "lower deck".

Here is a picture before the race. We are walking from the front deck, where we picked up our registration stuff, to the lower deck where our car is parked. A long line of people. The lake is on the left. Cleveland downtown straight ahead:

This has become a very popular race (5K is also an option) and this year it hit the limit of 2000 runners. The location is easily accessible and there is plenty of parking. Organization (by Hermes) is first class, in my opinion.

Here is a picture from the start line:

I see a little kid and a bunch of chubby guys, clearly not the kind of material that will win the race. WHY are these guys in the front line? I don’t understand what is going on through these people’s mind. Are they so ignorant? PLEASE show some respect for the fast runners behind you who are trying to run 5 minute miles.

The weather was nice for running. Cool (50F), cloudy, with some sprinkles. After a short warmup I realized that I did not need a long sleeved shirt so I went back to the car to drop extras clothes. Liz, as always, started overdressed and wasted valuable seconds trying to undress while running. That’s where I say “I TOLD YOU SO!”

My goal was to run 7 minute miles, and I succeeded! Mile splits: 6:52, 6:53, 6:55, 7:01, 6:57, 7:05, 7:04, 7:03, 6:53, 6:29. I am especially pleased that the last two miles were fast, resulting in a negative split. I was running under pressure with a group of runners, everyone trying to move ahead, so I pushed as hard as I could.

My final time: 1:09:04, was faster (by 1 1/2 minutes) from the previous best time which was last year. I finished 4/49 in my age group and 57/1665 overall.

Liz had a 10 Mile PR with 1:31:48. Here is a picture of Liz storming ahead in the last ½ mile of the race:

There are no pictures of me. I wish I had one while eating my 4th plate of scrambled eggs. I don’t say this with any pride, but I usually eat like 2-3 runners after the race. That’s my portion, Liz’s portion, and some more. I hope there was enough food for everyone.

My next important race is the Cleveland Marathon, where I hope to improve last year's time of 3:22, or at least do better than 3:30. More about this in a future blog.

Old Oak Run 5K - 2010

2010-04-25T17:49:00.000-04:00

Old Oak Run 5K – April 17, 2010

This is a small race (435 runners) in Middleburg Heights. The only reason we signed up for this is that it is part of the Hermes Road Racing series.

After a week of warm weather, it turned cold (30s) and windy for the race. The race was nicely organized, but I did not feel I was at my best. My mile splits were about 6:30 per mile (I was wearing a new Garmin watch, my previous one broke, so I don’t know my mile splits.) Interestingly, the finish line was past the start, so when you thought you were done, you still had a while to go.

My time was 20:42. I had no expectation for an award, especially since my age group for this race was 46-50, so I was the oldest in the group. Surprisingly, I got a 2nd place award. On the other hand, Liz was in the 51-55 group but finished 4th (her time was 26:32). What was more heartbreaking, she lost to her competitor in the Hermes Road Racing series by ONLY ONE second!

Here is a picture of both of us after the Awards Ceremony. The picture was taken by Lloyd Thomas (director of the Fools 50K and fellow Brecksville resident). Both Lloyd and his wife Andrea won first places. Lloyd’s time was 17:39 (7th overall).

Athens Marathon 2010 Closed?? WTF??

2010-04-11T17:00:00.006-04:00

I cannot believe it!!!

Last year I ran the Athens Marathon (in Greece) and enjoyed it. This year (2010) it is the special anniversary of 2,500 years from the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) so I was thinking of doing it again.

Then, my wife, who has not run a marathon yet, threw the idea of making this her FIRST marathon. I told her that she is crazy (it is a very hard course)but we talked about it and became comfortable with the idea, and started making plans. Sounded like a wonderful idea to go and enjoy the experience together. I loved it! I even got a stack of books and started reading about the history of the Battle of Marathon.

The registration opened a month ago. They sent me an email saying that I should register early because of the increased interest due to the anniversary. They said something like the race could fill by the end of Spring. Last year I waited until the last minute, just a couple of days before the deadline, sometime in October (!), and there were openings. There were about 3,500 runners last year. This year they said they will limit the field to 12,000 runners.

So, I go today to the web site, and what do I see? The race is filled and the registration is closed!!

("as the best race ever" you did not run!)

I did a bit of research and found that it closed in 2 weeks! (by April 1 - no joke!) In two weeks they filled 12,000 spots, while last year they only had 3,500 runners? Hard to believe. But they say that only 4,000 registrations were open to the general public. The rest were distributed to different groups and tourist organizations outside Greece, ahead of time. I really don't understand this. 2 out of 3 registrations go to organizations and let the general public out of the race?

They also say that around June (no date specified) they might free some registrations from cancelations (no specifics, nothing), so check the web site around this time. This is unacceptable and irritating. One needs to make plans, make flight reservations, train for the race, etc., so now we have to wait until June, just in case we get lucky? I say, screw them! Who needs that?

Who would have thought that the 2500 year anniversary from the Battle of Marathon would generate such an interest? Someone said that the anniversary is really next year (2011) since there is no year zero :) So I decided to buy the commemorative medal this year (anyone can buy it at http://www.2500marathonanniversary.com/ - only 10 Euros each, they come from South Africa from all places) and run the race next year (ha, ha!). Actually I bought 3 medals, one for me, one for my wife and one for ebay (50 years from now it might be in high demand). Here is a picture of it:

So I missed Boston 2010 and now Athens 2010. It's a terrible year!!! This puts a lot of pressure for people to register early for key races. Like the Summer Buckeye 50K. Some people put an alarm to wake up and register in the middle of the night. As if we did not have enough stress already. Running is supposed to be fun and here it becomes a source of stress and disappointment. Oh well, at least this shows an increased interest in running.

Spring Classic 2010

2010-04-10T15:01:00.003-04:00

We had a good time at the Spring Classic today. It was a bit cold at the start (32F) but sunny and warmed nicely to 40F by the end. I wore shorts, a long sleeve shirt, hat and gloves.

My goal was to improve last year's time (1:34:51).

I started a bit fast, banking time :) (First mile was 6:30 according to a fellow runner). My GPS watch broke last week so I had no idea what my pace was. Miles were marked but no one was calling times and I did not carry a stopwatch.

I got passed by my friend Michele early on and by a couple more guys during the race, but overall there were not many people and soon a large gap developed between the guy in my front and the guy in my back, so basically I was running alone. That’s not very good for pushing the pace.

The course is a real torture, good for building character. All roads. You go up, then down, finish one loop, and then repeat for a second loop. When finishing the first loop, the thought that you have to repeat this is a bit demoralizing, but you soon get over it.

Michele was the leading woman from the beginning to the end, so she got first place with a time under 1:30. She is 47 and a great runner. Here is a picture of her that I snapped during the race (I was running with my Fuji 3d camera):

I crossed the line at 1:34:30 (7:13 pace), barely improving my time, but happy with my effort. The big surprise is that I got a 3rd place award! I have been running the Spring and Fall Classics since 2005 (11 races total), and I have NEVER EVER won an award. So I was double happy! :)

My wife (Liz), as expected (remember, she "owns" this race) won first place in her age group at the 5K. My daughter (Lea) was 4th in her age group.

Here is a picture of all the happy runners with their awards:

From left to right: George, Liz, Lea and Andrew. Andrew is Lea’s friend from Toledo and won first place in his age group at the 5K.

There is another race (5K) next week and then the Hermes 10 miler the week after. This is the year of the races! Next long race is the Cleveland Marathon in May.

Trails !!

2010-04-07T13:09:00.001-04:00

The weather has been beautiful (warm & sunny) for the last week and I love running trails again!

Last Saturday we had a group trail run, starting from Boston, through the Buckeye trail to Snowville (5.2 miles) and then 4.8 miles to the Brecksville Stables, and back. Total of 20 miles done at about 3 ½ hours.

It was rather chilly at 6:30 am at the valley at Boston but at least 10- 20F warmer higher in the hills. I had stashed a bottle of Gatorade at Snowville, which proved to be a very idea. I was running ahead with Bob Clarke. Everyone else was behind.

At first we thought that the turnaround point was the Pavilion in Brecksville, but the GPS watch showed only 9 miles and there was no water there. So we continued for one more mile and found the Stables. We got some water and turned back. We met the rest of the group near the Pavilion and Nick Billock took this nice picture of us:

Later, Bob and I passed some runners who turned around at the Pavilion. They were dehydrated since they got no water and their supply had run out. I offered to share my Gatorade at Snowville with one guy. For the last couple of miles we ran out of water too, but made it to Boston OK.

Overall, it was a nice run. The weather was beautiful and the trails not too wet.

Fools 50K turns into 25K

2010-03-28T14:29:00.002-04:00

Well, the Fools 50K turned into 25K for me for no good reason.

The course is a double loop. Every loop is 25K or 15.6 miles. Most runners had signed up for the 25K. Those (like myself) who sign for the 50K have the option to stop after 25K, but they do not get any awards.

The double loop course is a problem for me. The Buckeye 50K is an out and back course, so you have to run back to get to your car. The Regis Winter 50K has two loops of 8 and 5 miles. It is easy to talk yourself into doing another loop and another loop, and another loop, until the distance is covered. But with the double loop course, after 25K you are back by your car and you have to decide whether to stop or do the entire loop again. It is tempting to stop after 25K, and that's what I did.

I feel guilty because I was not injured and was not excessively tired. I just did not feel like running another 25K loop. Plus, I must admit that I was not well trained for the distance.

Above: Nick is taking a picture of Lloyd (the race director), who is giving the last instructions before the start. Below: Runners are lined up ready to go (fast runners in the first row!)

The temperature this morning was 40F with a high possibility of rain/drizzling. I was not sure what to wear, so I took a variety of clothes with me. At the start I saw that most people had shorts on, and I decided to wear shorts, long sleeve T-shirt, a light jacket, cap, and light gloves. As it turns out, I felt a bit warm at the top and cold at the bottom.

The trails were muddier than expected (just look at Mel's legs in the picture above). The course is not as challenging as the Buckeye trail, with fewer and less steep uphills and wider paths. I started conservatively (first mile 9:37) but then got faster (9:17, 8:32, 9:25) and then settled at a 9:30 pace. For a while I was running with Mel and Bob Clarke and another guy, until Mel decided to blow one aid station and move ahead. I cleared the aid stations quickly too, so I ended up following Mel.

Beautiful vistas along the trail path.

While I had 3 miles left to finish the first 25K loop, I called my wife to meet me with some supplies. So my intention was to run the full 50K. But in these last 3 miles I started thinking about stopping. My legs were a bit cold, it was starting to rain, and the thought of repeating the 25K felt hard to swallow. I was afraid that attempting the second loop I might get excessively tired, or even injured, derailing my training up this point.

So I made the decision to stop at 25K, while still feeling strong. I even picked up the pace towards the end. I reached the 25K mark at about 2:32 and told them that I was done. And I was not alone. I saw other 50K runners stopping after 25K. If the weather was better and the trails less muddy, maybe things would have been different.

I kissed my wife and sent her back home. Enjoyed the potato soup, took a few pictures, and headed home.

Overall, this is a nice race and very well organized. The trail is definitely scenic, the course was well-marked and the aid stations plentiful, well-stocked and stuffed with helpful volunteers. But it comes at a difficult time of the year when most runners are not properly trained for long trail runs. In the two official training runs, the trails were full of snow. Now that the snow has melted, the trails are muddy.
Next year I might go for the full 50K, even though I am afraid that I have now given myself a reason to think it is OK to stop at 25K.

Damn double loop! :)

Jog Into Spring - Independence 5K

2010-03-27T20:04:00.002-04:00

Liz and I signed up for the "Jog Into Spring" 5K race in Independence, part of the Hermes Road Racing series. But Spring looked more like Winter this morning. When I got up, the temperature outside was 20F. What the h---??!! Not just winter, but face mask time?

Last time I ran this race was in 2007. I was 176 lbs and my time was 20:36, which is my best time for this course. This year I was 165 lbs and ready to get as close to 20 minutes as possible.

It was a rather small race (less than 300 runners). We warmed up for a mile or two, and I was freezing. In the last minute I decided to take off my long pants so I ran in shorts and two T-shirts (no jacket), and of course gloves and hat. I did not get overheated and I was not really cold, so it worked out OK.

The race started at the Independence Recreational center at 9am and went through local streets. I started fast with 6:13 for the first mile. Then, 6:47, 6:35 (pace in last 0.1 mile = 5:57).

My final time: 20:13. I finished 17th overall (out of about 300 runners). I got passed by two runners in the last 100 yards. One of them was in my age group, so I ended up with a 2nd place age group award.

Liz also finished 2nd in her age group, with 25:43 (new 5K PR!). Here is a picture when she crosses the finish. Click at the picture to enlarge and see her happy face:

We stayed for the awards and enjoyed the pizza and fruits. Here is a picture of both of us at the awards ceremony:

Later at home we looked at the results and it appears that both Liz and I are first in our age groups in the Hermes Road Racing series!

St. Malachi 5 Mile race

2010-03-27T17:31:00.001-04:00

I did something crazy: I went into 2 1/2 days of total fast to stop my weight gain and start a nice healthy diet. I stopped eating on Tuesday 3pm, and starting eating again on Friday. I have done one day fasts before, but this is the first time I went over. It felt pretty good actually. At no point did I feel hungry. The only reason I stopped the fast was that I wanted to eat something before the St. Malachi race :) Anyway, this morning I was 163.5 lbs, vs 171.5 on Sunday.

We got dressed (with my wife) and headed downtown. The weather was not great, with drizzling rain and 47F. St. Malachi is a large local race in downtown Cleveland, with over 2000 runners. For many runners it is the first race of the year. This was the first time for both of us doing this race. The main reason we did it is that it is part of the Hermes Road Racing series.

This picture, of Liz waiting in line at the porta potties, with a plastic garbage bag over her, I think clearly shows the kind of weather we were dealing with:

This was also the first time that I got overdressed for a race. I decided to leave my long pants on and two shirts, and ended up regretting it when I got really hot during the race.

Here is a picture of the crowds a short time before the start of the race:

The race started downhill. In the first mile mark my Garmin showed 6:20 pace but the race clock said 7:09. Well, lets call this a long mile. There is no way it took me 7:09 to complete the first mile.

The rest of the race I was trying to catch Mike George, fighting for the 175th place. I ended up finishing 2 seconds behind Mike, with a time of 35:42 (7:08 pace), 12/106 in my age group and 177/2150 overall.

My goal was 35 minutes (7 minute miles) so I went a bit slower than expected. My miles splits (from the Garmin): 6:20, 7:04, 7:22, 7:21, 7:27. I think I was a bit weak from the fast. I should normally have no problem running 7 minute miles during the entire race.

The East side running group had a very strong presence in this race, with Mark and Steve Godale, Kam Lee, Tracy Mader and Connie Gardner, all winning age group awards. Elizabeth was serving as a cheerleader on the sidelines.

I waited for Liz, who finished at 45:53 (9:09 pace) 8/40 in her age group. Here is a picture of her just before the finish line. She is smiling just for this picture, but she was cursing the uphill finish (she confessed that she had to stop and walk):

Knowing that there was no chance for an award (2153 runners in this race), we grabbed something to eat and went home.

Overall, it was a good race, but I am not sure if we will do it again. My wife complained (among other things :)) about the condition of the roads, the slippery bridges, and the hills. I did not mind, but the wife is the boss :)

This was a 3rd race in 3 weeks. Time for some rest now.

Shamrock 15K

2010-03-27T17:02:00.002-04:00

Good race in good weather

I have been running the Shamrock 15K race continuously since 2004, 7 years in a row. It used to be that this race was the first race of the year, but this year it was the 4th race for me. One thing different about Shamrock is that it starts at 12 noon, instead of the morning.

Two years ago we had emerged from a snowstorm, and last year it was raining hard during the entire race. But there was nothing to complain about (weather-wise) this year. It was sunny and the temperature 40F. I put on shorts and a long sleeve shirt and felt fine (not too warm or too cold). But still, there was a lot of snow on the ground, as you can see from this picture of Lea & Liz before the race:

So, I carried my 171.5 pounds (new record, up from 160 in November) to the start line, knowing very well that I would not be able to match last year's time of 1:06:35. This is a *very* hard course with few flat parts. My wife (Liz) and daughter (Lea) were running the 5K, also a hard course.

I started fast. I have the theory that in this race it does not matter how fast your start. You will slow down in the hills starting at mile 5. Might as well bank time early on while you can. And so I did.

At mile 5 I got passed by two friends, Michele and Matt, but other than that very little happened in terms of passing and getting passed.

I kept a good pace and I am happy with my performance. The time flew quickly. I do not recall any bad moments. Looking at my pace (from the Garmin), I am pleased that the last miles were strong, around 7:10 min/mile at a slight uphill.

The pictures below were taken by others during the race. I am on the left, in front of Sean, who was struggling with an injury. Liz is with the pink on the right.

Rose was coming from behind, closing up in the last mile. I could hear the spectators yell "Go Rose!". Hey, I am not letting Rose pass me! :) So I pushed on, and finished, not too tired, about a minute slower from last year, at 1:07:36 (7:13 pace).

I fully expected to get an award. I was second last year in the 45-49 age group. But this year in the 50-54 age group, I got NOTHING! What a shock! :) Oh well, at least Liz got first place in her age group in the 5K so we got the little flashing red light that they gave for awards. Daughter Lea finished good at 30+ minutes. I love this picture. Liz is proudly showing her award and Lea is making a face, like "Stop bragging Mom!"

Thus finishes another Shamrock 15K family race. We’ll do it again next year.

New Orleans 1/2M – Great Time!

2010-03-07T01:45:00.001-05:00

New Orleans – Great Time!

Our story begins on Thursday night when it started snowing in Cleveland. I shoveled the snow before going to bed around 1 am. At 5 am the phone rang. It was the school, letting us know that school was cancelled. I got up and shoveled the snow again and then got dressed and left for the airport.

The flight was on time (unbelievable!) See a picture of our plane among the snow above. Of course, we were happy inside the plane, knowing that we were going to a warmer place. We arrived in New Orleans around noon to a sunny day, and 60F. Quite a difference! Here is a picture of us in New Orleans:

Friday afternoon/evening we went out for drinks and dinner on Friday (French Quarter, Bourbon street, quite interesting!) On Saturday we went for a long walk, ate the obligatory Beignets, then signed up for a Bus tour of the New Orleans neighborhoods. The picture below shows Liz sipping a "Hurricane" at Pat O'Briens famous bar in New Orlean's French Quarter. She is in double not because of the effects of the cocktail, but because the picture is in 3d!

Sunday (race day) we got up at 5:30 got dressed and walked to the start line. The weather was warmer than I had expected, around 50s, warming to 60-70 by noon (the sun felt good - we needed the vitamin D). I was going to wear this silly hat I had bought but the last minute I decided to skip it because it was too hot. I did wear it before and after the race:

Both Liz and I had signed up for the 1/2 Marathon. I was in coral 1!! (Liz put down 1:32 for my expected time), she was in coral 9 (out of 24). Here are pictures of both of us by the start line of the race:

This race was my Liz's idea to keep us motivated through the winter. But, as she said, the running was hard to train for in the winter, but there was no problem with the eating and drinking!! So here I am in coral 1, all 170+ lbs (vs. 160 in November).

I started running 7 min miles but gradually my pace slowed to 7:30. Got passed by a lot of runners, struggled a bit, but enjoyed the run. My time was 1:36:29, which is 5 minutes slower than my PR (the 10 extra lbs are showing), but I managed to finish 9/282 in my age group and 260/9300 overall.

Liz had a nice race. She started at 9:06 and slowed down to 10 min/mile but she did not suffer as in her first 1/2M (this was only her 2nd). She finished at 2:06:54, a PR by less than a minute. 54/407 in her age group. Interestingly, there were 3 times as many female as male runners in the 1/2.

After the race, we stayed around, ate the food, drank the two free beers per runner and enjoyed the festivities. The beer was Miller 64, served in bottles slightly smaller than this one:

Just look at the race photos and think that in Cleveland there was a snowstorm on Saturday with temperatures around 25F. Ha!

Then back to the hotel, took a quick shower and went out to enjoy the very nice (sunny and warm) day. We ended up at the Casino, drinking free Hurricanes and winning $50 (to pay for tomorrow's cab ride to the airport).

Overall, we enjoyed the trip and the race. New Orleans gave us a good impression and the race was very well organized and fun. We might do it again in the future, or aim for another R&R race next year.

In addition, I took 985 stereo pictures with my Fuji 3d digital camera (pictured above, and also seen in all official race photos). These turned out very well. Last Tuesday we had a stereo club meeting. I entered 3 pictures and got three awards. So the trip was productive in more than one ways for me.

Let the Race Season Begin!

2010-03-07T01:07:00.001-05:00

First race of the season!

Chili Bowl 5K Classic was held in downtown Cleveland (starting by the Terminal Tower) on Saturday February 13. Liz, and I signed up. This is part of the Hermes Road Race series and we are both signed up. So there is going to be a lot of racing going on for both of us!

Race started at 9:30 am. Temperature = 26F & light snow. Roads were slippery.

Chilly at the Chili Bowl - how appropriate!

*** Results ***

I finished first in my age group (1/28, 44/685 overall) with 21:06.

Liz finished 5/19 with 27:06

Mile splits: 6:26, 6:54, 7:26 (slight uphill in the way back)

My award was a nice (chili) bowl. I am happy with the results, considering the slippery roads and the fact that I have gained 10 lbs since November! Time to get into shape!

We both enjoyed the race and are happy to see our placement in the Road Racing Series: http://www.hermescleveland.com/roadracing/results/2010/RRS/SUMMARY.HTM

I am first in my age group and Liz is second in her age group!

50K Run for Regis - 2010

2010-01-19T15:41:00.012-05:00

Summary

I have mixed feelings about this “Fun Run”.

The first 13 miles were easy and rather enjoyable, at 10 min/mile average pace. But after that, the “fun” very quickly changed to “torture”. My pace slowed down to 12-14 min/mile. I developed blisters, got tired of running, and started praying for the ordeal to be over.

But I made it under 6:30 and when it was done, I actually felt pretty good. Good to the point of entertaining thoughts of more 50Ks soon and attempting longer distances, even a 100 miler!

Am I a masochist or what?

Training

Who thought that running 32 miles in snow-covered trails without proper training in January in Ohio would be a good idea?

One problem is training: It is impossible to train properly for the given running conditions because most likely the running conditions on “race day” will be unique. I had trained on dry trails, leaf-covered trails, muddy/wet trails, trails with fresh snow, but not slippery trails covered with half-melted snow, as we had on Sunday.

My training consisted mainly of running 12 miles / 2 hours on trails every Saturday. That’s clearly not enough. You need at least 2 runs 20-25 miles to get ready for this.

With the word “fun” in mind I arrived at the “Ledges” around 6:45 am. The race director (Tanya, below) gave us the final instructions and at 7:30 am off we went!

Course

This is a new course, consisting of two loops 5 and 8 miles, just like the old course. To compete the 50K you need to run 5 + 8 + 5 + 8 + 5. After you complete each loop, you return back to the “headquarters” (starting point). There is one aid station inside each loop.

The run is labeled “fun” in the sense that it is not a race. There are no awards. Everyone pays the same amount and gets the same benefits: a handsome Brooks running jacket and a bowl (or more) of chili. Anyone can run any distance they like, a combination of the two loops: 8, 13 (“Half Marathon), 18, 26 (“Marathon”), 31 (50K)

According to my GPS Garmin, both loops were about 1/2 mile longer so the total distance was about 33.5 miles or 54K.

After each loop, I zeroed my watch (a good idea, since I then knew exactly where I was located within the loop and how far away I was from the nearest aid station). I timed each loop and I think these times tell the story:

5 mile loop times: 54:37, 1:00:47, 1:13:02
8 mile loop times: 1:27:11, 1:58:00

Fun

The first two loops (5 + 8) went fine, running strong and confident. I was even ahead of Mel and Rachel, the top female runners. (They both passed me around mile 13, with 15 year old (!) Rachel finishing first - again! I can run faster than her in shorter races but she is nowhere to be seen in these 50Ks).

The course was well marked with little arrows at cross-points and orange ribbons marking the right side of the trail. We were told that it is possible to get inside a loop the wrong way and still finish the loop, having the orange ribbons on the left side, instead of the right. This actually happened to me in the first 8 mile loop, when I followed the guy in front of me, despite my better judgment. No harm done, I got to meet all the runners who ran the loop in the correct direction.

By the time of the 2nd 5 mile loop I was already slowing down, got passed by several runners and felt blisters developing on the bottom of my foot, as a result of the friction of the wet socks and shoes.

Despite the well marked course, I managed to run a loop in the opposite direction (duhhh!)

Torture

The worst part by far was running the 2nd 8 mile loop. I slowed to a crawl and did a lot of walking. Only a couple of people passed me (a sign that others were struggling too?) so I was mostly alone.

Just to give you an idea of how low my spirits were, I had carried with me a music player to entertain myself listening to the radio, podcasts, or some music, and did not even have the energy to take it out of my pocket! I also carried my new Fuji digital 3d camera with me, but only used it for a few pictures. I was not in the mood (very strange for me).

My feet were sliding all over the place and I was wondering if wearing plain trail shoes was a good idea. I could see from the footprints in the trail that some people were using additions to add traction on the snow.

I was feeling miserable and I had decided to skip the last 5 miles. I was already composing my blog with title: 50K (NOT!) FUN (NOT!) RUN. This was definitely not fun. The only way to run the last 5 miles was if my wife joined me. She was going to meet me before the last loop. I called, but she did not bring her running shoes, which made me mad (not difficult to do at this point).

Last 5 Miles

By the time I reached headquarters for the last loop, something strange happened: I felt better. This is very weird, but it also happened last year. My wife said that I looked fine (after 5+ hours of running, under these conditions??). I changed my socks and shoes (well aware that this would do little to stop the blisters), kissed my wife and son, and headed for the last 5 mile loop, determined to complete the 50K.

This last loop was actually the best, even though it was the slowest. At first I was trying to catch a younger guy in front, so I could have some company. But he seemed determined to finish ahead of me and he had more energy, so he pulled ahead. Then I heard someone approaching from behind. I started talking to him and, soon enough, we are talking and enjoying the run together. Running with a partner makes a hell of a difference at this stage.

Two young guys passed us when we stopped at the last aid station (1 mile from the finish). Then another guy came from behind just to finish a bit ahead of us. If I were alone, I would have pushed, to finish ahead of these guys, but, what the heck, it seemed meaningless at the time and I had a good time running and chatting with my new friend, Bob (above).

As we approached the finish, Bob noticed the Race Clock nearing 6:30 and said “let’s beat 6:30” so we sprinted and made it! Here is the proof:

In the end, there were 5 of us finishing within one minute, from 6:29 to 6:30. In the official results (posted at: http://winterrunforregis.blogspot.com/ ) I am listed 29/74 with the official time of 6:29:56. This is better than last year’s 6:47, but slower than the year before (my first winter 50K) were I finished at 5:31 (in better weather conditions).

I am sure there were a lot more than 74 runners signed up for the 50K, so I am pleased to be one of the 74 who made it (even though I barely made it!). The rest completed the shorter distances.

Aftermath

After the race, I stayed around for a while, socializing with other runners. I met Clara and her friend from Indiana. Clara is the “Indiana Girl” from my first Winter 50K blog (seen below, suprisingly fresh and quick, at the "finish line")

We all got our packages and were treated to nice chili and grilled cheese sandwiches (I had 3 servings!) By the way, in this race I made an effort to eat and drink in every aid station. My favorite food was noodle soup and I had plenty of Gatorade.

The most amazing thing is that I felt great at the end. It seems that all the bad memories were erased. As I am writing this blog, I am making an effort to remember the “bad times”. Equally strange, the next day I had almost no muscle pain. Liz took care of the blisters and I am ready to resume running today (Tuesday).

The human body and mind is a strange thing. Despite the pain and frustration during parts of the run, I am already thinking of running longer and faster. I love running and I think I prefer long and slow trail runs to short & fast road runs.

I think I will look into running a 50 miler this year and maybe 100 miles next year.

Many thanks to the race director and volunteers for making us do this, and helping us stay fit and strong during the winter (talking about "strong", I've gained 10 lbs since my marathon in Athens, but I am sure it is all "muscle" :)) Now I am starting a diet so I can go back to my normal race weight!

Following the Guy with the Pony Tail

2010-01-02T12:22:00.001-05:00

Snow covered Trail Run – 15F

I had every good intention to wake up early and join the 6 am, or maybe 7 am running group today, but when I got up and saw all the snow in the ground, I decided to wait and join the SERC (South East Running Club) which always starts at L29 at 8 am on Saturdays.

I arrived at L29 at 8:15 and barely made it, joining about 8 more running fanatics. This group runs for about 12 miles, 2 hours, in the trails. The temperature today was 15F (-9C). It sounds more dramatic in Celsius but it was quite cold and I had to wear a face mask, in addition to the regular winter running gear.

Steve (second from left) is deciding which way to go. - Some parts of the trail has thick snow.

The group’s leader appears to be Steve Godale, Mark’s brother, who has a long redish hair and long beard. A couple of weeks ago I asked if they have a running schedule and they said, “we just follow the guy with the pony tail” (Steve). I then asked, “What are you doing today?” Reply: “We are following the guy with the pony tail”. So, the plan is very simple.

Some parts were easier to negotiate that others.

Today Steve decided to go off the trail so for about 30 minutes we were a bit lost, in the thick snow, in the middle of nowhere. But, finally, we found the trail again and we were back to L29 safe, almost exactly 2 hours after we started.

I really enjoy these trail runs, even in the winter!

New Year’s Run with Ed – 2010

2010-01-01T19:23:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everyone!

What a better way to start the new year than join Ed for the Traditional New Year’s Day Run? Nice but challenging run 6.6 miles in 1:03. Here is a picture from two points during the run:

We started at Boston where Ed took a group picture but his camera ran out of battery, so when we reached the Brandywine Falls I was the only runner with a working camera. I took a picture of the group and then someone took another picture, seen here (I am the guy with the red jacket in the first row):

Great New Year’s Eve 5K Run - 2009

2010-01-01T19:17:00.000-05:00

Great New Year’s Eve 5K Run

My wife and I ran the Great New Years Eve 5K last night. This was the 3rd time for me and the first time for my wife (I had to work a bit, to make her agree to this :))

My times in the previous 2 years:

2007 – 20:47
2008 – 21:48

The weather was fairly decent (last year it was very cold and icy, this year it was 38F, the streets were wet but not slippery). At the start I got behind some slow runners and was a bit delayed, until I found an opening on the left side. My first mile was 6:31. Mile 2 involves some hills in the return, time 6:51. Mile 3 = 6:53. Final stretch: 6:18. I was happy I passed a couple of runners near the end, including 14 year old Rachel.

My time was almost exactly 21 minutes (a bit over actually, as I tried to beat 21 minute but did not make it). This is a good time considering the weather, tough course, and the fact that I have gained 8 lbs since the Athens Marathon! (I’ve fallen off the proverbial wagon, in the eating/diet department)

Liz before the race and at the finish line.

We stayed after the race to enjoy the food and socialize with other runners. When the time came for the awards, it was a repeat of the Thanksgiving 4 mile race. They announced the top Female winner but she said she was not the first. If they cannot get the first female runner right, you know the results are all messed up. So, they stopped the awards and asked people to come forward to check their times and placement. I was listed 3rd in my age group with 20:50, and my wife was also listed 3rd in her ago group, so we took our awards (engraved glass) and went home, happy. They have posted what they call "preliminary" results in the Summit Athletic web page.

Overall, despite the confusion with the times and awards, it was a fun race and we’ll do it again.

Falls Run & Accident

2010-01-01T18:12:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday I joined a group of 40 or more runners for the “Falls Run”. This is a comfortable 18 mile trail run visiting local falls. It is the first time I do this (previous years we went to Minneapolis between Christmas and New Year’s so I have missed all previous runs).

It is a nice scenic trail run. We started from Lock 29, ran up 5 miles to Pine Lane and to Boston. From Boston we ran 5 miles to the Brandywine Falls (1) and back, then 4 miles to Blue Hen Falls (2) and Buttermilk Falls (3) and then 5 more miles back to L29 via the Buckeye Trail and Pine Lane. It took exactly 3 hours of running.

Here are some pictures that I took from the Brandywine and Buttermilk Falls:

You can see more pictures (with me in the picture) in Nick’s blog here:

http://rtrsbm.blogspot.com/2009/12/m-cubed-for-122809.html

This would have been a perfect day, if it was not for an accident I had around mile 3 of the run. While crossing Boston Mills Road (from Pine Lane to Boston), I fell and hit my leg at the metal rail on the side of the road. This was clearly my fault. Instead of stopping and taking it easy, I tried to step on the piece of wood (see picture below, taken a few weeks ago with my wife going over the exact same rail - I marked the piece of wood I stepped at) to go over. The wood was icy, so I slipped and fell right at the sharp metal rail.

At first it hurt quite a bit. Michele was running ahead, turned around and asked if I was OK. I said I was fine and continued running. I knew I was hurt badly, but I could not decide whether to stop and call my wife to pick me up, run to Boston and from there to L29 and then drive home, or just keep running. I kept running. I decided to continue to Boston. At Boston I checked my leg (see picture above - I snapped this picture for memories). The wound looked really deep but it was not bleeding a lot and it was not hurting enough to force me to stop. So I decided to keep running, to finish this nice long run.

When I got home, my wife saw the wound and started screaming at me to go to the Emergency to have it stitched up, which is what I did. At the emergency I had 2 X-rays, a tetanus shot and 14 stitches put in my leg! Everyone was amazed that I kept running for 15 miles / 2 ½ hours, after this accident.

Anyway, I was able to run the next day and race on Thursday (New Year’s Eve) so it cannot be that bad. It is healing nicely right now.

Home Run For the Homeless 2009

2010-01-01T17:08:00.003-05:00

Home Run For the Homeless 2009

This year for the first time I ran (together with my daughter and Matt, her friend from Toledo) the “Home Run for the Homeless” 4 mile race on Thanksgiving Day.

It was a perfect running weather, cold in the morning but sunny later. Good running atmosphere. Delicious muffins in the end. A nice way to start the Thanksgiving day.

I ran with the Fuji 3d camera in my hands - This is a picture from early on. Mike George (center left) is leaving me in the dust at this point. I ran most of the race with the little girl with the green T-shirt on the left, which wrote in the back "Sorry officer, was I going too fast?" I could not get this out of my mind during the entire race!

This picture is from near the end. A couple more turns and we are done. The guy with the black shirt is Jamie Carr from our running group. He passed me in the uphill and even though I yelled at him "Hi Jamie", he did not turn around to say "Hi" because he was working hard to pass me. I tried to catch him in the final stretch but he was going too fast for me.

I thought that the course was hard overall. It was also a bit short (3.8 or 3.9 miles). I felt a bit out of shape and finished behind most of the people in my running group, but I am happy with my time (26:18). It will take a lot more effort and training to meet my time goal of 25 minutes.

One of the more interesting runners at the finish line: The leaping leprechaunm made a nice subject for our 3d stereo club competition "Motion".

We stayed for the awards and that was a bit frustrating because it became clear from the very beginning that the results were messed up. They made the mistake to announce times with the awards so every time they mentioned a time, someone would say, “Wait, I ran faster than that, how come I am not getting an award?” After a while, they stopped announcing the times but everyone had the feeling that things were not right.

My friend Mike Juppe is receiving the Master's Award. He appears to be really excited about this, plus the large Turkey that is part of the award. But, as it turns out, he was not the fastest Master runner. So, later he had to return his trophy, but he kept the Turkey because he was still in first place for his age group (first place winners get a turkey). Thanks to Mike, I got my award too! (Later, not at the award's ceremony because, thanks to Mike again, I was bumped into 3d place when my division 1st place runner got the Master's Award)

Later, next day, I checked the results in the internet and I was not listed. After a few email exchanges to straighten things out, I was listed 4th, but then changed to 3rd because they moved one of the guys ahead of me in my age group, to get the “Master’s Award”. My friend Mike went and picked up my award (he had to return his Master’s award) so in the end I am happy I got a nice mug.

The “good weather” and large “same day” registration was blamed for the errors. This is the first time in 8 years of running races that I waited to register on race day, because I was not sure I would be running this race, plus the deadline for mail-in registration was 11 days before the race (isn’t 7 days enough?) Needless to say, I will not wait until the last day again.

Anyway, we had a good time and got a nice exercise. We will do it again next year.

Fall Classic 2009

2009-12-14T00:08:00.003-05:00

Something must be happening around Thanksgiving... I get busy with work and neglect my blog. Last year I stopped blogging at this time for about 6 months. But I am determined not to let this happen this year.

Liz & Lea, heading for the star line

My friend Mark from Brecksville was also running the 1/2

The race took place on Sunday before Thanksgiving. In our family this, and the Spring Classic, is an annual favorite. My wife and daughter run the 5K, I run the ½ Marathon. My wife always has a good race and she claims that she “owns the race”. She has actually won an award in every 5K race she ran in either Spring or Fall Classic. I have never won an award.

I had a good race. The weather was nice (cold but sunny) and this made it a very fast race overall. My official time is 1:32:40 (7:04 pace). Even though this is not a ½ Marathon PR, it is my fastest time in this course, out of a total of 10 races. However, I only finished 8/35 in my age group of old guys (50-54) and 66/325 overall.

Lately I have been running all races with my Fuji 3d camera and I take pictures and videos during the race

To give you an idea of how fast the race was overall, there were about 50 runners (out of 325) with a time faster than 1:30!!!

Mile splits: 7:04, 6:57, 7:01, 6:57, 6:52, 7:00, 7:06, 7:06, 7:11, 7:11, 7:06, 6:50, 7:03. Overall I am happy with my consistent and fast pace. I have decided I will never win an award in this race (never have) so I just relax and enjoy the torture of going up and down this rather boring course TWICE!

I was happy, smiling, while I was approaching the finish line, when I noticed this guy sprinting by me. I tried to outkick him but it was too late. I did not have enough time to react!

My wife Liz won 1st place in her age group with 26:07. Lea finished at 32:03.

After the race, I read a lot of complains in active.com. Apparently, they ran out of water, out of food, and out of medals. There were complains about the parking, restrooms, and the 5K slow runners who were getting in the way of the 1/2 runners (apparently, the 5K started a bit late so the 1/2 runners met them towards the end of the first loop). None of these affected us. We had a nice race and we'll come back to do it in Spring!

Athens Classic Marathon 2009

2009-11-21T22:05:00.003-05:00

“I came, I ran, I conquered” the Athens Classic Marathon!

I had a wonderful time in Greece and a very nice race.

I arrived in Athens on Friday, November 6, after an uneventful flight. My brother picked me up from the airport, ran a few errands and then dropped me at the Expo. Everything went well, no problems. I never got adjusted regarding the time difference. On Saturday night I went to bed at 10:30 pm with the alarm at 5:00 am. I woke up feeling fully rested, but it was only 1:30! I forced myself back to bed, but got up at 3:00 am, unable to sleep any more.

Got up, ate, got dressed and left my brother’s house around 6 am. I went to pick up Tony, an American friend I met the previous day. He was staying in a hotel nearby. While waiting for him to eat breakfast, it started raining really hard. We walked to the Stadium to pick up the bus for Marathon. Our feet got wet. The bus left around 6:30 am and we were in Marathon by 7:00 am. We had 2 hours before the race started.

I ate 2 energy bars, drank Gatorade, took pictures, socialized with other runners, and at 9:00 am I was ready to go!

My goal was 3:30. To understand how the race goes, you have to take a look at the topography. I divide the course into 4 sections:

A. First 6 miles (10K): It is flat. I started the first mile conservatively (it was also crowded) at 8:11. Then: 7:37, 7:38, 7:39, 7:45. The pace felt very slow and comfortable. Around the 5K mark we were diverted from the main road to tour the Tumble of the Marathon where the battle of the Marathon took place in 490BC.

B. Next 6 miles: A slight uphill, but I manage to maintain a good pace of 7:45. My splits: 7:47, 7:43, 7:33, 7:58, 7:26, 7:48. I feel great! It was drizzling in the first hour and had my Fuji 3d camera covered in plastic. When it stopped raining I took it out and took pictures and videos of the race. In the picture below I am crossing the half line at 21km. You can see me holding the Fuji 3d camera. I was actually recording a 3d video at this point.

C. Next 7 miles (20-32K): This is the hardest part of the course and apparently one of the most difficult stretches of any well-known marathon. There is an elevation gain of about 800 ft. My average pace drops to 8:20. Splits: 8:15, 8:26, 8:19, 8:40, 8:10, 8:09, 8:21.

D. Final 6 miles are downhill. Normally, this would be good news, but my legs are tired and downhill running hurts more than uphill. My average pace is 7:50. Splits: 8:02, 7:34, 7:52, 7:58, 7:49, 7:57, 7:58.

I entered the Stadium for the final 200 meters where I found the strength for a semi-kick. I looked at the official race clock and my time was 3:29:58, only 2 seconds away from my goal time! Chip time: 3:28:41. I finished 37/404 in my age group, and 452/3853 overall.

After the race, my legs were hurting and my stomach was upset. I managed to smile and my relatives said that I looked great. In the picture above I am photographed with my sister Alexia and nieces Vasia and Maria. The picture on the right was taken by a fellow runner, using my Fuji camera.

It is fair to say that I felt worse than other marathons, but I took an ice bath and felt better for the rest of the day. The next day I was happy and ready to do it over again! My legs were hurting a bit for a few days. I walked a lot and did not run. I returned to the USA on Friday and ran on Saturday for the first time.

Right after the race I was interviewed by a young reporter. She wrote down (on a notebook with a pencil) a lot of details and then the photographer took a picture of me. I did not catch the name of the paper but the next day my interview was published in one of the largest newspapers in Athens (TA NEA – The News). That was quite a surprise! I took a picture of the paper interview below. It says that I was 100kg (225 lbs) when I started running in 2001 and dropped to 72kg (160 lbs) thanks to running. My goal was to run the Athens Marathon when I turned 50. This is what the reporter considered the most important points from the many questions she asked.

Overall, my experience was positive:

1. I made all the arrangements on line (http://www.athensclassicmarathon.gr/ ) The expo was well organized, the transportation of the runners to the start was without problems. The weather cooperated (low 60s with rain, better than the days immediately before and after, 70F and sunny).

2. The medal is nice (serious look, like a large coin). The T-shirt is plain short sleeve cotton.

3. The course is mildly scenic at first, later goes through industrial areas, and finishes in Athens. Aid stations every few miles, well-stocked, no problem. Crowd support is sparse but enthusiastic (“Bravo, bravo!!!”).

4. The finish in the Panathenaikon Stadion, where the 1896 fist Olympic games took place, is spectacular.

No one is running this marathon for the medal, T-shirt or the beauty of the course. If I want a nice course, I’d stay in Ohio. You are running this marathon for the history. But I was touched by the people who were out in the rain and the fact that all the roads were closed just for us! (I took the bus the next day to visit the city of Marathon, and the route is a lot uglier with cars and traffic, so I consider myself privileged that the roads were open only for us runners).

I went back to the US with very good impressions and I would like to run this marathon again in the future, this time with Liz. Based on the 10K results, Liz would have done great if she had come to run the 10K.

Overall, I am happy I did it and would recommend this marathon to other runners, interested in history and international marathons.

Towpath 2009

2009-10-11T21:25:00.002-04:00

Towpath 2009 - Race Report

Today was the Towpath Marathon, Half-Marathon & 10K, which takes place in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which runs very close to our house. I did not know this, but this race is only one of two races taking place in a National Park.

Perfect weather for running (35F at start!) a bit chilly waiting for the awards.

This was the last test for me before Athens... I was aiming for 7:10 pace, but managed to clock 7 minute miles on the average, finishing 19th overall (out of almost 1000 runners!) with a time of 1:32:16, which is my 2nd fastest half after the "River Run" half last month.

My mile splits: 6:40, 6:54, 6:59, 6:53, 6:54, 7:00, 7:05, 7:03, 7:00, 7:07,7:13, 7:10, 7:07

My wife (waiting at the finish) reported that were a couple "old-looking guys" finishing ahead of me, so she was afraid I'd finish 4th again. But I finished 1st out of 42 in my age group, 5+ minutes ahead of the 2nd. The curse of the 4th place is finally broken!

Liz (wife) ran the 10K and finished 1st in her age group with 52:10.

A good day for both of us. I am especially happy that I can manage to run 7 minute miles in a half. The Towpath course is not a particularly fast one. It is flat (downhill in the first mile) but the crushed limestone has less friction, that leads to slower times.

The goal of 3:30 for the Athens Marathon appears to be within reach.

The Day After

2009-09-27T23:34:00.004-04:00

The day after the Akron marathon brought a nice surprise: MY LEGS ARE *** NOT *** HURTING!!!

So, now I get it: If you want your legs not to hurt, don’t run fast… That’s what my wife is doing :) Seriously, the person who said “It’s not the distance, it's the speed that kills” is absolutely right! After the Perfect 10 Miler 3 years ago when I set my present PR (6:51 pace), my legs were hurting for a couple of days. And it was only 10 miles. After my half marathon at 6:58 pace 3 weeks ago, my legs were hurting. But, running Akron at 8:20 pace does not produce pain (even though it felt hard).

I am happy for that. For a while I was worried that I pushed too hard in this marathon. The reason you should not run a marathon too close to an important race is that the recovery from the marathon can mess up your preparation for the race. This does not appear to be no problem for me now. I still have 5 weeks for Athens. My goal is 3:30, which is rather conservative but very reasonable considering the difficulty of the course.

Akron Marathon 2009

2009-09-26T19:31:00.004-04:00

A Training Run that Went Not So Well:

Since I am running a "serious", one-of-a-lifetime marathon in Athens, Greece, November 8th, I decided to treat the Akron marathon as a training run for the Athens Marathon.

Based on my good Spring Cleveland Marathon (3:22) and the good 20 mile Akron training run, 3 weeks ago (8:08 pace, finishing very strong), I decided to run the Akron marathon at 8:20 pace (3:40 finish).

Sounds easy, right?

WRONG!!! This was the hardest "training run" I've ever run!

I joined Elizabeth's pacing group (3:40 time). Elizabeth has the unique ability to chat during the entire marathon. As expected, she entertained us with her stories, and she also maintained a constant 8:20 min/mile pace, no matter what!

Do you ever have runs where you know from early on that this is not your best day? This rarely happens to me in a race, but it happened in this one. From the very beginning my legs and hips felt tight. The pace did not feel as easy as it should. I was thinking... if I feel like that in mile 10, how am I going to feel in mile 20?

After 11 miles running around the city, we entered the "Towpath" section, for 4 miles. At the exit of the towpath there is a 3 mile stretch of rolling hills at first and then mostly uphill. This is considered the hardest part of the race.

My original plan was to see how I felt at the top of the hill and maybe take off if I felt good. Elizabeth had us climb those hills at 8:20 pace. She warned us that this is a tough section and urged us to stay together and we will feel better when we get to the top. I managed to keep up myself and was surprised by how many did. But by the time I reached the top, my legs were very tired. There goes the "felt good" plan. At this point I realized that I will never feel good, so my best bet was to just keep up with the pace group.

I continued to follow the pace group until around mile 20. At this point, I started struggling and falling behind. Somehow, I managed to keep visual contact with the group. I was also mentally revising my final time... Maybe 3:45? It is a training run after all. If that was a regular training run, I would have stopped and walked at this point. But it is a marathon and my family will be waiting for me at the finish, expecting me at 3:40. So I had to keep going.

Only when we got to West Market Street I felt a bit better, knowing that it is downhill and only 2 miles to go.

My last two miles were at 8 min/mile pace, with 7:30 min/mile down on Main Street. I managed to catch up with Elizabeth at the final stretch before the finish. My official chip time: 3:38:53.

George Themelis #735
Brecksville, OH
Age: 50 Gender: M
Distance MAR
Clock Time 3:39:47
Chip Time 3:38:53
Overall Place 227 / 1331
Gender Place 196 / 930
Division Place 21 / 92
3 5M 00:28:17
9 2M 01:17:24
25K 02:09:52
30K 02:33:43
Pace 8:21

I am happy I finished strong, but I am also worried that this run felt worse than it should have. I cannot see how it would be possible to run this marathon any faster. I am actually surprised I managed 3:30 last year.

I now have to revise my plans for Athens. I was secretly hoping for something like 3:20 or better. Now, I will be happy with 3:30 in what is a difficult course (net elevation gain with long uphill sections).

Legs NOT hurting?

2009-09-15T08:37:00.010-04:00

Please help resolve this on-going marital dispute!

What does it mean if your legs are NOT hurting after a hard race?

My legs always hurt after a race. Later the same day. Even more the next day. And the day after that, and so on. Sometimes I am even unable to run for a couple of days. This is especially true for long races, of course, but it also happens with short races, like a 5K. For example, after the Half Marathon on Sunday, my legs (quads, etc) were hurting later on Sunday, also on Monday, even today (Tuesday).

<--- Liz struggling at mile 13 the half. Yet, her legs did not hurt after the race. What gives?

On the other hand, my wife's legs NEVER hurt! I keep asking her after every race: "Do your legs hurt?" Her response: "No". "Not even a bit?", "Not at all".

"Then," I say "you did not try hard enough".

And there is where the argument starts. She insists that she ran as fast and as hard as possible, but still her legs do not hurt. How is this possible?

How is it possible to give 110% and not pay for it (with pain)?

I don't get it.

After I wrote this, and posted in a running email discussion list, most people said that they did not understand it either and offered explanations like "maybe she does not want to admit that she is hurting".

I had a long discussion with her. She says that her hips felt a bit tight and her Achilles tendon slightly tender (she had problems with both Achilles tendons and her hips in the past) but she has absolutely no muscle pain. If you hit my quads right now, I will jump up and screem. She feels nothing.

She also shows another unusual characteristic: Her training runs are even and fast. But her race pace drops and her final time in the race is slower than a training run!

Example: 2 weeks before her first half, she ran a training run at the Towpath, 13.2 miles at 9:32 fairly even pace. The Towpath is flat but slow due to less friction. This good training run led her to believe that she could achieve 2 hours in the race. Her target race pace was 9:20. Sounds possible, based on this training run.

In the actual race her mile splits were: 8:57, 8:55, 8:46, 9:04, 9:13, 9:22, 9:37, 9:33. Up to this point (first 8 miles) things look good. But look what happened next: 9:52, 10:03, 10:39, 10:34, 11:04.

Average pace = 9:45.

Most people (myself included) can race faster than they train. If I could cover the distance at 9:30 pace when training, then for sure I could do a 9:00 average pace in the race, most likely 8:30 (one minute faster in the race vs. training).

Maybe she started too fast and this caused the melt-down at the end (the last 11 min/mile is very uncharacteristic for her... even her slowest training miles are faster than 10:30 min/mile). She swears that the first miles did not feel fast and she has no explanation for the melt-down at the end. She likes to blame the hot weather & sun, but the weather was not hot and the course was well-shaded :)

So, she remains a mystery to me :)

River Run Half - New PR!!

2009-09-13T14:08:00.007-04:00

River Run Half Marathon Race Report:

It was a beautiful day for running :) About 60F degrees at the start, rising up to around 70F, and sunny. The River Run course is point-to-point and definitely fast. I would estimate that 80% is downhill. There are only a couple of mild inclines in the start and another one before mile 10. I felt I was running downhill most of the way. It is also well-shaded so I could not have asked for better running conditions.

<--- Happy with a new Half PR

This is the 4th time I am running the race and the 1st half for my wife. My best time in previous years in this course was 1:37:42 and my 1/2 Marathon PR from last year was 1:32:50 (Buckeye Half). My ultimate goal was a new PR.

I started a bit in the back and it took me 15.5 seconds to cross the line. This will prove significant in the end because my friend Jen passed me and finished ahead of me but in the final results I am ahead by 0.25 seconds!!

My Garmin GPS watch was running a bit behind the official mile markers so I did not pay much attention to my mile splits and just ran as I felt. Indications were that I was running 7 min/miles and this was good for me.

The miles rolled quickly and uneventfully. Around mile 10 I was following a group of runners who I was using for pacing. Then at mile 11 I hear someone approaching from the back. I look and it is Jen!!! She looked strong! She passes me for a while, then I pass her back, thinking that's the end of it.

While we are approaching mile 13, the runners in the front turn left and stop! Apparently, they were not registered for the race (darn bandits!) Without my pacers I am losing ground and here comes Jen again, passing me. Despite my usual finish line kick, Jen finishes ahead, but in the final chip time results I am listed ahead by a fraction of a second!

<--- Liz finishes her first Half!

My final official time: 1:31:15 (pace: 6:58) - New PR!!! (by 1 1/2 minutes)

My overall placement is 55/830 and my age group placement is 4/42. I continue to be plagued by the 4th place curse!!!

My mile splits according to my Garmin: 6:48, 6:56, 6:54, 6:50, 6:57, 6:51, 6:53, 6:53, 6:57, 7:01, 7:02, 6:52, 6:53, (last 0.1, 0.24 according to Garmin) 6:18.

If you discard the first mile and the last 0.1 mile (0.25), there are only 11 seconds difference between the fastest and slowest mile. I don't think I have ever run a more even pace in a race!

My wife's training plan was predicting under 2 hours for her first 1/2. I was predicting between 2:05 and 2:10. She started well, but slowed a lot the last 3 miles. Her final time was 2:07:44, a PR of course!!

Overall, I am very pleased that I managed to maintain a 7 min/mile pace for the entire 13.1 miles.

Next race (for me): Akron Marathon! I plan to run it slowly, using it as a training run for Athens/Greece, aiming at 3:40

I am back!!!

2009-09-07T23:55:00.003-04:00

For a while it looked like I had lost both speed and endurance! I reached a peak before the Buckeye 50K. While recovering from that race, I injured my lower right leg (which is stronger than the left) by overstretching around the ankle (at the top, not the sides). The main pain went away quickly, but I was left with a lingering irritation and discomfort that got worse with running time. This would slow me down.

Signs that I had lost endurance:

1. Two weeks ago we had a group run with a 15 or 20 mile option. Most people did 20. I barely managed 15 and it felt really hard.

2. Last week we did the “triangle of death”, a total of 15 miles. I only did 10 and felt dead!

Signs that I had lost speed:

1. In my Wednesday speed workouts, my pace for the tempo run is slower than 7 min/mile, while before the Buckeye 50K it was around 6:30.

2. In my daily runs I am going slow. Runs with a pace of 10 min/mile with Liz feel hard (if you can believe that!) My weekly runs to the Rec Center via the Buckeye Trail are very slow.

But, everything changed last week. I decided to put an insert in my shoes and a heel lift in the right foot. That eliminated any irritation and seems to have healed my right foot, so now I am running with two strong legs. My Buckeye trail run last Thursday was the best for a long time. My Wednesday tempo run was at a decent 7 min/mile pace for 6 miles.

Finally, on Saturday I joined about 100 runners for the last long run before the Akron marathon. The run was 20 miles, following the Akron course. I was planning to run it at 9 min/mile. The first 4 miles were: 8:41, 8:32, 8:16, 8:18.

We then got into the towpath (mile 4.5). Instead of slowing down, I actually speeded up a bit: 8:03, 7:59. 8:09, 8:10.

Coming out from the towpath (mile 8.5) we hit the hills of the Metropark, slowing down (as expected) but not bad: 8:29, 8:33, 8:49, 8:51

At the top of the hill, there was Gatorade. I filled my bottle, plus I had the small energy drink that Liz likes. After this point, I ran surprisingly strong: 7:55, 8:02, 7:55, 7:55, 7:46, 7:22, 7:06, 7:15.

These are amazing times, at the end of a really long run! I finished strong, not exhausted or tired.

This good run makes me confident that I can run a decent run next Sunday for the River Run Half Marathon. The Akron Marathon will be a training run. I plan to run it easily with a 3:40 targeted time. The real race this year will be the Athens Marathon. As it turns out, I am going alone. I will try to enjoy the trip, even though the focus is on the Marathon.

Perfect 10 Miler 2009

2009-08-16T15:57:00.005-04:00

OK 10 Miler & the 4th place curse

After the race my wife said "I see nothing Perfect with this 10 miler... For me, it is just an OK 10 Miler..." I think she is referring to the course, with its twists and turns and long uphill stretch. Organization has been great.

The weather was sunny and rather warm. I started fast, averaging 6:35/mile for the first 3 miles (6:46, 6:37, 6:49) . I slowed down in the uphill, as expected, (7:03, 7:10) but the downhill was not much better (6:56, 6:59), I struggled in the last 2 miles (7:16, 7:11) and got passed by a couple of runners.

My final time: 1:08:51 (6:54 pace)
My 10 mile PR (in this course) remains 1:08:31 from 2007

<---- Empty-handed again!

When they posted the results at the end of the race, I was listed 3rd. So, we stayed for the awards. My wife liked the mugs they were giving and she was happy I was getting one. But the final results list me 4th. The 3 guys ahead of me are all 50 years old. It is going to be a long & tough 5 years for me!

I have been hit by the "4th place curse" lately... I finished 4th in the Independence 5K and 4th today (My wife was 4th too, with 1:36:49 – her first race over 10K -, and so did a couple of our running friends).

Next race: River Run 1/2 Marathon (Sept 13)

I signed up for the Akron Marathon last week (it is September 26).
I plan to run it slower, as a training run for the upcoming ATHENS (as in
Athens, Greece) marathon in November (8th)!

Independence 5K – 2009

2009-08-10T23:41:00.003-04:00

<-- Example of my fine photographic work. This is a picture of Liz at the finish (she is the one on the left). Her head is missing! That's because I had the digital camera at the top of my film 3d camera. I was only interested in taking the 3d picture. I then snapped the digital picture, without looking at the display, and here are the results!

What will it take for a 50 year old to win an age award in a small local race with a time of 19:31?

Apparently, it will take a new age group... For some unknown reason, Independence age groups are shifted by one year.... Most races have 45-49 and 50-54 age groups. Independence has 46-50 and 51-55. So both my wife and I were the oldest in our age groups and we did not win any awards (in the next age group we would have both been 2nd). I was happy to turn 50, but for Independence I need to wait one more year!

The results:

- George (me): 19:31, 4/21 AG (46-50), 29/350 Overall
- Liz (wife): 26:35, 8/18 AG (46-50), 192 overall
- Lea (daughter): 31:12, 10/12 AG (15-20), 264 overall

I have run this race in 2003, 2004, 2005 and every year I set a PR. The 2005 time was 20:06 and my goal was to beat this time, so I am happy I achieved this, plus my 19:31 is not too far way from my 5K PR (19:19 from 4 weeks ago). The course (redesigned) was a bit complicated, full of turns, which might have contributed to slower times.

I was worried about a recent injury. 10 days ago I injured my lower foot while stretching after a run! At first I could not run (was hurting even when walking) but it improved quickly. During warmup for the race, I could feel it, but when the race started, any pain or discomfort instantly disappeared! It seems that the adrenaline rush is acting as an analgesic. Only at mile 2.5 I started feeling a slight discomfort but it did not slow me down.

My mile splits according to the Garmin: 6:00 (the time called at this mile split was 6:15), 6:25, 6:33, 5:37 (last 0.1).

Next Race: Perfect 10 miler!

50K 2009 - Aftermath

2009-07-21T10:45:00.004-04:00

<-- At the Buckeye Trail, right after Boston, heading for Pine Lane.

The day after the 50K I went for a 6 mile “recovery” run and all the systems tested OK. The results are out and it appears that this is the fastest 50K BT race ever. Two examples: 1) There are 21 runners with time under 5 hours, vs. only 6 last year. 2) The first female runner (Beth Woodward) finished 12th overall with time 4:42. Last year (with a slightly better time) she was 3rd overall. I finished 25th. If I had maintained my pace (for a 4:55 finish) my placement would have been 19th.

About hitting the wall: I have always been proud of my strong and fast finishes in races, including marathons and previous 50Ks. I have never hit the wall in a race. I did not even think that a wall exists for me (for my body, nutrition routine, and distances that I run). So I was surprised how quickly and unexpectedly this came about.

Some people might say, you've run for 28 miles and there were only 3 miles left. Couldn't you just dig deep inside and find the strength to run them, even slowly? It was impossible. It's like saying, this car has been running for 300 miles and now it is out of gas. Can it just run 10 more miles? There was nothing left in the tank, so to speak.

My new system of eating a large breakfast before the run has served me well for up to 24 miles, but it needs to be fine tuned for longer races. If you are curious, here is what I ate at 6:00 am on race day (just one hour before the 7:00 am start): A large bowl of hot cereal with a sliced banana, raisins, walnuts, two teaspoons of peanut butter and honey at the top. Plus, an orange, and I had a glass of Gatorade. Not many people would think of running after this. A nap sounds more appropriate.

I am still glad that my collapse came from lack of energy and not from an injury (common among other runners).

After having completed 5x 50K runs (3 summer, 2 winter) I would like to try my hands (legs?) into something longer. I think I am ready for a 50 mile race. 100 miles is insane (for me, at this point). I wish the Burning River 100 also had a 50 mile section. I guess I can look for something further but I like to run/support local races.

Buckeye 50K 2009 - Race Report

2009-07-18T19:15:00.007-04:00

My time goal for this race was under 5 hours. I ran a strong race and consistently achieved or beat my time goals station after station. For example, my time at the half was 2:21:47 vs. 2:26 aim time. The cool weather and firm ground (it had rained enough to make the soil firm) was helping runners achieve fast times.

<--- 5 hours and 5 minutes later... Sprinting for the finish!

In the last aid station (Snowville Rd), with 6 miles left to go, I met my wife and she handed me a bottle of water. I felt fine so I did not stop to eat or drink anything. In retrospect, that was a big mistake. I should have eaten something. I arrived at this station 5 minutes ahead of time, so my projected finish time was 4:55.

The first miles in this last section went fine. I passed a young kid who was apparently falling apart. A bit later I passed 2nd Female runner Kelly Karen, and Plain Dealer columnist Zachary Lewis. Both of these guys were well ahead of me at the half, and they both appeared to be struggling a bit. I passed them easily.

But, with 3 miles to go, I started to feel tired. My pace slowed. I felt hungry and weak. Clearly, I was hitting the proverbial wall. I was out of water. I started walking. I NEEDED FOOD! I kept walking. I looked back and saw Kelly approaching. I asked if she had anything to give me to EAT. She did not. We are only 2.3 miles from the finish.

I arrived at the pavilion, 2 miles from the finish. I was happy to see Susan and Matt waiting there. I asked for food. They only had water. I gladly took water. Bur right there, two people are setting up a picnic. Their van is full with food: All kinds of snacks, chips, popcorn, and cases of pop. I explain that I am running a race and I desperately need food. They are reluctant. I asked for a single can of pop but they refused! "You are not part of our group" they said.

Disappointed, I continue to walk. Everyone that I passed in the last 10 miles, is now passing me, including the young kid. He is half-running, half-walking, but he appears to have a bit more stength than me. I continue to walk. Finally, I see a young lady, holding a basket. I ask for food. "Sorry, I do not have any food, but I have some Gatorade" she says. "YES, please give me Gatorade". She fills half of my bottle. I drink it at the spot. A rush of energy goes through my body and I am able to run again.

Only1.5 miles left to the end. I am happy to be running again. I pass the kid. But I soon need more water or Gatorade and I have nothing. Last 0.7 miles. I am running, but I also take walking breaks. I hear the Brecksville sirens (always at 12 noon - meaning it is now 5 hours into the race). Kiss 5 hours goodbye.

So, I make it to the final stretch. I see my wife and son ready to take pictures. I smile and try to run fast. As I approach the finish line, I see the clock reading 5:04:50, 51, 52, 53. I sprint. If I cannot beat 5 hours, at least I can beat 5:05!

I cross the finish at 5:04:59.

People are congratulating me (sprinting at the end of a 50K, that must be something) and Vince hands me the medal. I am starving so I go straight for the food. Within a minute I eat 5 slices of pizza, with dripping oil and all that. I then hit the cookies. I have never been able to eat right at the end of a race, so this is new to me.

As I lay in the couch, thinking about the race, I have mixed feelings. Even though I did not meet my time goal, my final time is a PR by 10 minutes. I am pleased that I ran 28 strong miles, beating my time predictions. I learned a good lesson about eating during the race. I should have eaten in the last aid station, carry some energy gels and ask my wife to meet me at the pavilion to make sure I was OK (to cover all bases). I will apply what I learned "next year".

Here are my race time splits for the race historians:

Oak Grove - Snowville: Goal: 55 min. Actual time: 53:06
Snowville - Boston: Goal: 49 minutes. Actual time: 49:30
Boston - Pine Lane: Goal 42 minutes. Actual time: 39:11
Pine Lane - Boston: Goal 42 minutes. Actual time: 39:38
Boston - Snowville: Goal 51 minutes. Actual time: 51:34
Snowville to Oak Grove: Goal 60 minutes. Actual time: 71:41

New Age Group!

2009-07-17T12:22:00.002-04:00

Today it's my birthday!

This birthday is important because I am entering a new age bracket (50-54). I am now officially an old guy. Over 50 is also known as "Grandmaster" ("Master" is over 40) and some races have a "Grandmaster" award.

That's one good thing about running. You look forward to getting old... A new group of older guys to beat in races, and even a new award to aim for. Great!

Unfortunately, in our area there are many fast runners in the 50-54 group. As a matter of fact, it is easier to win an award in the 45-49 age group than the 50-54 age group. More pressure for me!

Buckeye 50K – Under 5 Hours?

2009-07-15T10:12:00.002-04:00

They are predicting a nice cool weather for the Buckeye 50K Trail Run this Saturday so fast times are possible.

This year I have trained very well and I have a goal: Under 5 hours.

Is this goal possible? At first I did not think so, but my training runs went so well, that now I think it is possible.

A bit of history: I have run this race for two years now. The first year (2007) on a cool dry course, my time was 5:14. This was a big surprise since it was my 1st Ultra and I had just started running trails. A friend of mine (we bonded during the training runs) who always finished ahead and less tired, finished the race in 6:30, so my 5:14 (without even carrying water!) was a great achievement. Last year (2008) I did not train well, but put a lot of miles in our vacation in California. The weather on race day was hot and I finished at 5:21. My time was slower, but my placement was better than last year. Plus, I passed 7 runners in the 2nd half.

This year I have trained well and I have also timed my splits, so I know what to expect. My time during the run of the half (Oak Grove to Pine Lane) was 2:26. It felt that the pace was too fast at the time, but I have improved a bit since then. So now my goal is to run the first half in 2:26 and the second half in 3:34. That's only 8 minute difference between the two halves. If you look at last year's results (first time the half times are recorded) very few runners had such a small difference. Actually, from those who run the race under 6 hours, only two have a better difference: Kam Lee (8 minutes) and Matt Pazderak (4 minutes). My difference was 15 minutes and it was the 6th best.

Here are the times I aim to run each section (first half, second half, difference in parenthesis)

Oak Grove - Snowville Rd (6 miles): 55, 60 (5)
Snowville Rd - Boston (5.3 miles): 49, 51 (2)
Boston - Pine Lane (4.2 miles): 42, 42 (0)
Total: 2:26 + 2:34 = 5:00 (8)

My specialty is the last leg (Snowville to Oak Grove) which I have now run many times (easy for me, since I live in Brecksville, 1 mile from the entrance to the BT on Snowville Rd and I run through it to go to our fitness class, twice a week). Most runners are too tired by then, and run this leg very slowly. If I arrive at Snowville by 4 hours, I think I can finish under 5 hours.

Last night I happened to read E-Speed's (Elizabeth H.) blog where she recorded her split times from last year's 50K. This is very informative (the only published split times I have seen). Here they are (rounded to the next minute):

Oak Grove - Snowville Rd (6 miles): 53, 65 (12)
Snowville Rd - Boston (5.3 miles): 49, 53 (4)
Boston - Pine Lane (4.2 miles): 41, 41 (0)
Total: 2:22 + 2:39 = 5:02 (17)

Looks like she slowed down quite a bit after Boston in the way back. As a friend said, the race really starts after Boston.... Bodies of exhausted runners are scattered all over the place from Boston to Oak Grove :) Hopefully this will not happen to me. The trick is to try and preserve strength during the first half. I always walk the uphills. Whatever time I lose walking, I make up running them down fast in the return.

Broadview Heights 5K – 19:19 !!!

2009-07-12T13:44:00.007-04:00

I had signed up for the Broadview Hts 5K before Muddy Paws, because I want to support local races (my city, Brecksville, and Broadview Hts share schools). But after running Muddy Paws 10 miles yesterday, I was wondering if that was a good idea. Especially since I have my big race, the 50K Buckeye Trail next Saturday.

My dream has always been to break 20 minutes in the 5K. My 5K PR is 20:06 from 2005. But I have shifted to longer races and when there is a choice of 5K and a longer distance, I always run the longer distance. This year I decided to try and break the 20 minute 5K barrier. I selected two races. This was the first try and Independence 5K (in August) is the second.

My wife (Liz) also signed up, and, worried about her 5K time, drove the course and told me there was a huge uphill very close to the start, about 1/2 mile long. So this did not look like a PR course. Plus, we heard from other runners that there is a 2nd hill at the turn-around point. Oh well, it is a nice sunny & cool day (58F in the morning) so, let's go!

The race started at 8:30 am. A short flat distance, then turn left and up the hill for the first 1/2 mile. Surprisingly, I am passing people right and left, going up the hill. Then turn left at Parkway Drive. I kept passing people. My first mile time is 6:08! Wow! This is an amazing time, considering that 1/3 this mile was uphill!!! I have never run a mile that fast in a race.

At the turn around point I am counting the runners in front of me. I am 6th overall! I cross paths with Liz and she is yelling at me "number 6!!!" It seems unbelievable.... [we must have miscounted because the official results show that I am 5th overall]

But, I start to get tired. I know I cannot catch the guy in front... I am only trying to hang into 6th place. I am slowing down but keep pushing. If I make it to the last 1/2 mile, all downhill, I will be fine, I am thinking, because I am a fast downhill runner. It seems it's taking for ever to get to that point. I have my usual recurring nightmares and fears of quitting in the middle of the race (“at least, my time will be good, even if I walk the rest”, I am thinking)

Finally, I make it to the end of the road and turn right for the downhill... I try to run the downhill as fast as I can, but my legs are tired... I am now at the bottom of the hill. The guy behind me is getting closer. We turn right and we are at the final stretch. I can see/hear him, trying to catch up. But, surprisingly, I have enough strength for a sprint! So, I sprint to the finish, maintaining 6th place overall, and finishing at 19:26!!! (Official chip time: 19:19)

Needless to say, I am very happy! My goal of under 20 minutes 5K is fulfilled. Not only that, but, if you look at my Running Goal Times blog, even my “life time goal” of 19:30 is fulfilled! Great! I can now relax and stop running :) Or… maybe I can aim for 19 minutes? Hmmm….

I attribute this success to three factors:
1. My “3 pm diet” (159.5 lbs in the morning)
2. The Buckeye trail training. I have been running a lot of hard miles lately.
3. Speedwork sessions every Wednesday, thanks to Liz who makes me do them!

Back to the race… I stayed around the finish to take a picture of Liz... She finished at 26:17, a new PR for her too, and good for 3rd place Age award (50-54).

The Broadview Hts Mayor finished just a step in front of her. He must be in my age group because when he handed my award (1st age group 45-49) he said something like "I will never be as fast as you". I felt like saying "That's OK, I will never be a mayor either".

This concludes a good race weekend for me... Now rest and relaxation, in preparation for the Buckeye 50K. My goal is to run it under 5 hours. More about this in the blog to come.

Muddy Paws 10 Mile Trail Race

2009-07-12T13:38:00.001-04:00

This turned out to be a very good race weekend for me... In preparation for the 50K Buckeye Trail next Saturday, I had the fine idea to run two "tune up" races this weekend, the Muddy Paws 10 miler on Saturday and the Broadview Heights 5K on Sunday (today)

This was the first time running the Muddy Paws 10 mile Trail race and I won first place in my age group with 1:22:28 (16/144 runners).

It was a good race, a bit warm and humid but it did not rain... This was a new course this year and apparently faster than the previous one (comparing the results). My Garmin says it was 10 1/4 mile long and I believe it because it always measures race courses shorter, never longer.

The course consists of two 5 mile loops. The first 3.5 miles are in open grass fields mainly, while the last 1.5 miles of the loop were my favorite because it reminded me of the Buckeye Trail (roots, etc). Vince called this part “Technical”. I wonder whey they call it “Technical” when it is really more “natural”?

Overall, I was pleased with my time and the fact that I finished ahead of the 15 year old "child prodigy", Rachel, winner (F) of last year's winter 50K. But I was way behind the first two female runners, Beth and Shanna. At some point I was entertaining thoughts of stopping after the first 5 miles but decided to go on. Thanks E-Speed for calling my name when I was completing the first loop… It was encouraging.

I stayed for the awards and liked the fact that Vince gave away nice merchandise for awards, even though the 5 milers got first choice. The size 13 sandals left were too large for me, so I got a pair of size 9 for my wife.

I have to train Vince to pronounce my last name correctly. He sounds it like Themelius, but there is no "u". He will have to practice because it looks like he will be saying more often :) (with wife and daughter running too).

Jim Klett 2009

2009-06-21T18:49:00.008-04:00

Just like last year, we woke up to a rainy day. My weight was down to 162 lbs, the lowest it's ever been before any race, ever! (The 3pm "diet" is paying off!)

It was raining really hard in the morning of the race, but five minutes before the start, it stopped raining. I am glad I procrastinated warming up, so I ran relatively dry :)

The first mile was fast as expected (downhill). I was running along with Jamie and Jen, but I pulled ahead around mile 3. First 4 mile splits: 6:29, 6:39, 6:41, 6:54. The hills start at mile 5. Pace slows as expected: 7:23, 7:06. Last 0.2 split: 6:41.

I am a bit disappointed that my times are creeping up. I want one day to be able to keep up a 6:30 pace in the 10K.

My official time: 42:46. I finished 2nd/14 in my age group and 25/203 overall. This was my 2nd best time in 6 years of running the Jim Klett 10K.

I turn 50 in July so I always look at the next age group results. There some fast runners there. I would have placed 6th! Normally, I would be happy to advance to the next age group... but not this time! :) I have to get faster quickly!

Liz’s time was 27:01 in the 5K (best time this year, but her PR is 26:20 from the Buckeye 5K last year). She won 2nd place in her age group. As a matter of fact, this was the 2nd fastest time in females over 40. Lea finished 5th in her age group with 31:02. She was happy she ran the entire distance.

We stayed for the awards and enjoyed a nice breakfast. The Jim Klett race is becoming a nice family running tradition.

Weight Loss with the 3pm diet

2009-06-21T14:24:00.007-04:00

Lately, I have been doing the “3pm diet”. This is not a revolutionary concept. As a matter of fact, it is not a diet at all. It is not a secret either, but someone managed to write a book, titled “The 3:00 PM Secret”. Here is the link to the publisher’s web page.
And here is the book in Amazon.

The principle is very simple: Stop eating at 3 pm. Or, as the author likes to say, eat a nutritious breakfast, a nutritious lunch, a snack at 2:30, and then you are done. It is really amazing that an entire book was written around this concept. So, basically, you are skipping dinner and go without eating from 2:30pm to maybe 7:30am, a total of 17 hours or so.

Two questions come in mind: 1) Why? 2) How?

Regarding the "why", the author goes into great lengths to prove that this kind of eating schedule has many advantages, both in terms of weight loss and in terms of a lifestyle: 1) By eating most of your calories in the morning, you can burn them later in the day, so you end up losing weight. 2) You don’t need to worry about cooking & cleaning dishes in the evening and you have more time and energy to devote to a hobby or other pursuits.

I definitely agree with #2. Most people come home from work, overeat, and then are too tired digesting to do anything productive, so they end up laying on the couch, watching TV (and snacking). Not having to worry about dinner in a sense frees you and gives you more time for productive work.

Point #1 is questionable. They are those who say, it does not matter when you eat. You can eat all your calories in one meal, eat only in the morning, eat only in the evening, or eat many small meals during the day. It is irrelevant. All that matters is how much goes in and how much goes out (via exercise). I am not sure I agree with this mechanistic view of the body, but one thing is certain: It is very difficult to overeat for breakfast and lunch. The majority of the calories are consumed in the evening. So by skipping dinner you can lose (or maintain) weight, depending on how much you eat in the morning.

I have been doing this for a week now and have already lost a couple of pounds, even though I tend to eat a lot. I work at home so after my breakfast at 7am, I usually eat a 2nd breakfast around 9am. So I eat three meals. Someone with an office work will most probably eat less and weight loss is almost certain.

Now, to the “how” My wife cannot believe that I just stop eating after 3pm. But it is very easy for me. My body is now used to this, and does not expect food. I feel fine. I don’t get hungry, and I go to bed for a good night’s sleep with my digestive system taking a break.

I expect that a lot of people have a problem with this concept, especially if they like to entertain or go out to eat, or just enjoy eating and have nothing productive to do in the evening. There are people (my wife is one) who look forward to eating dinner. These are the people who will not even agree to try this. The book says it is OK to have something light, like a soup, and it even gives you two “free days” a week. So, the 3pm is not etched in stone. I personally don’t need the freebies. It would be nice if my wife was also in the same schedule, but I don’t care. When she cooks dinner and asks me if I want to eat, I politely refuse and ask her to save my portion for lunch tomorrow.

There are people (in Greece for example) who routinely do not eat breakfast (I used to do this). So, they are going without eating for long periods, but at a different time of the day. There is even a book called “The Fast-5 Diet” which advocates skipping breakfast and lunch and only eat between 5pm and 10pm (thus a fast minus this 5 hour window). In one sense, this is exactly the opposite of the “3pm diet”, yet there is no question that both methods could work. It is difficult to eat a lot in a short window of time during the day (even though I am sure some people can do it). At the end, it might be a matter of lifestyle, and I definitely prefer eating early than late in the day.

I am also doing something that I have not done before: I eat breakfast before long morning runs (for example the Sunday trail runs for the Buckeye 50K race). I find that this gives me more energy later in the run. I would not do that for short runs or fast races, only for long slow runs.

I am happy that someone wrote a book about this. I have been interested in weight loss since I started running in 2001. It is a long story, but, briefly, I was 225 lbs in 2001 and dropped to 175 after one year, by just running and without any other adjustments in my diet. After the first year, I fell in love with running. I soon realized that I could enjoy running more, and be better at it, if I lost even more weight. But it is not easy now that I work at home and I am close to my “ideal” weight. I have tried different things, including not eating after a certain time (around 5pm). This personal version of the 3pm diet worked, but I did not keep it up. Now that I know that someone else has thought long enough about this and even wrote a book, I feel encouraged to try it again. It is not something I made up. It is now official.

Bottom line: This 3pm concept is helping me lose or maintain weight and I enjoy the lifestyle benefits I get from it. I have more energy in my long morning runs, and more time for productive work in the evening.

Running Time Goals

2009-06-19T09:57:00.003-04:00

They say that a runner achieves his/her PRs within 5-10 years from when they start running. It does not matter if they start at 25 or 55, the rule still applies. That’s because it takes a couple of years to build up strength and running endurance. Then “old age” catches up with you. Your times will only go down from there on. I started running in 2001. My first race (5K, 21:27) was in 2002. Eight years later I think I still have room to improve my race times in all distances (especially if I lose weight, as I plan to do).

Here is my wish list:

Distance ------Time Now (Pace) VO2max ------ Goal Time (Pace) VO2max
5K --------------20.06 (6:32) 49.5 ------------------19:30 (6:17) 51.3
10K -------------41:20 (6:37) 49.8 ------------------40 (6:26) 51.9
10mi ------------1:08:31 (6:51) 50.0 ----------------1:06 (6:36) 52.2
½ Marathon ----1:32:50 (7:05) 49.2 ----------------1:30 (6:52) 51.0
Marathon------- 3:22:4 7 (7:44) 46.5 ----------------3:10 (7:15) 50.2

It appears that my current VO2 max is around 49-50. I need to increase it to 51 to 52 and then I will achieve my goal times.

Predictions!

2009-06-19T09:50:00.004-04:00

I have been fascinated with running times predictions, i.e., predicting your time in one race, based on times in other races, ever since I read a 1977 book by Manfred Steffny "Marathoning" (see previous blog). From Manfred’s book I first read about the possibility of predicting your marathon time, based on your 10K time. He gives a very simple formula:

Marathon time = 10K time x 4.666 (1)
He later modified to: 10K in 30 minutes -> Marathon in 2:20. For every extra minute in 10K, add 5 minutes to the marathon (2)
A more conservative estimate (recommended for beginners) is even more simple: Marathon Time = 10K time x 5 (3).

Right now my 10K PR is 41:20 (2007). My best marathon time is 3:22 (2009).

(1) 41:20 x 4.666 = 3:13
(2) 2:20 + 5x(41:20 – 30) = 2:20 + 56:30 = 3:16:30
(3) 41:20 x 5 = 3:26:30

Seems like my actual time is between (2) and (3). I think formula (3) is more typical for people without enough marathon experience/training and it is very easy to remember: Formula (1) might be my upper limit and (2) something to aim for.

Here is a table published in Manfred Steffny’s book:

Max. possible Realistic
10Km marathon time marathon time
------ ------------- -------------
27:00 2:05:00 2:08:30
28:00 2:10:00 2:14:00
29:00 2:15:00 2:19:30
30:00 2:20:00 2:25:00
31:00 2:25:00 2:30:30
32:00 2:30:00 2:36:00
33:00 2:35:00 2:43:00
34:00 2:40:00 2:49:00
35:00 2:45:00 2:55:00
36:00 2:50:00 3:00:00
37:00 2:55:00 3:07:00
38:00 3:00:00 3:15:00
39:00 3:05:00 3:20:00
40:00 3:10:00 3:25:00
42:30 3:22:00 3:42:30
45:00 3:35:00 4:00:00
47:30 3:47:30 4:20:00
50:00 4:00:00 4:40:00

The Realist time is more appropriate for someone’s first marathons. The Table stops at 50min. Older runners and women can use the formulas.

I have devised two more simple formulas to predict marathon times from 10mile and ½ Marathon times:

(4) Marathon = (10 mile time) x 3
(5) Marathon = (1/2 Marathon) x 2 + 15 minutes

(4) My 10mile PR is 1:08:31 (2007) x 3 = 3:25:33
(5) My ½ Marathon PR is 1:32:50 (2008) x 2 + 15min = 3:20:40

Both are reasonable.

But the mother of all prediction calculators in the internet is here:
http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/rp.php

You enter your age, gender, and one race time and it gives you several predictors, plus an average prediction. Cool! But there is more in this web site... It will also calculate how weight loss will affect your running times and more.

Staying on the topic of Marathon time predictions, I tried this web site and here is what I get:

Distance PR ----------- Predicted Marathon
5K – 20:06 -------------------- 3:10:33 - 3:25:57
10K – 41:20 ------------------ 3:10:11 – 3:24:52
10 miles – 1:08:31 ---------- 3:10:35 – 3:23:29
½ Marathon = 1:32:50 ----- 3:13:57 – 3:25:09

The first marathon predicted time is an average of several formulas. The 2nd time is called the “Purdy Formula” and it seems more realistic to me. To read more about these formulas, go to the link above.

Manfred Steffny – Marathoning Book

2009-06-19T09:27:00.003-04:00

There is a plethora of books on the Marathon and I have many books in my personal library. But one book that stands out is called “Marathoning” and is written by Manfred Steffny. It was published originally in German in 1977. I bought the English 1979 Edition at a local library sale for around $0.10. You can usually find a used copy in ebay for under $5.

This was one of the first books I read on Marathons and I liked it a lot. It reflects the running mentality of 1970s Europe, which is a bit different than the current US mentality, which is why I like it. I think his ideas are simple and solid, and not much has changed since the 1970s, as far as first principles are concerned.

Here are some ideas from this book (written mostly out of memory):

1. Regarding when to run your first marathon, he advocates a solid year of running, and weight loss. Yes, you can drag your overweight body over 5 hours in the marathon course, but why? I am amazed at the number of people who start running and immediately want to run a marathon. It is better to take time to adjust to running first and lose some weight to get “marathon ready”. When I started running I immediately declared that I was not interested in running a marathon. Of course, I changed my mind but it took 3 years or running before attempting my first one.

2. Predicting your marathon time: I first read about the possibility of predicting your marathon time based on a 10K time from this book. He has an interesting discussion on the topic, and his formulas work for me (more about this in a future blog).

3. Diet and marathon running: He advocates natural diet and losing weight. He says what when your friends say that you look bad (too thin, etc), then you are in the best form for a marathon. This is the first book I encountered the idea of running and fasting (more about this later).

4. Hydration during the race: I think his basic philosophy is like mine “Let thirst be your guide”. For top runners: Would you rather finish 2nd and well-hydrated, or 1st and dehydrated?

5. Running with different shoes (variety is good). He says something like this: My suitcase if filled with different running shoes. Other runner’s suitcases are filled with pain pills. On the subject of injuries, he is against pills, injections, etc. but prefers natural remedies.

6. Ultramarathon Running: He claims that it is easier to run 100K than a marathon and maybe you should train and run a 100K first. When I first read this, I thought it was crazy and I had no plans to run anything longer than a marathon. But since then I have run several 50K trail races, and now I know that 50Ks are actually easier on the body than a marathon, even though the distance is longer.

These and other ideas about training, pacing, etc., are found in this little gem. I recommend it to all runners.

I searched google and found that Manfred Steffny is still around and doing well, still running at the age of 68. His web site is: http://www.steffny.de/ (use google to translate it in English). He has been the Editor of the Spyridon running magazine, the oldest running publication in German (since 1975).

An Amazing Race (800m Final, 1972 Oympics)

2009-06-09T09:13:00.006-04:00

There is no question, YouTube is the biggest waster of time for a computer user today… Once you get there, you start watching video after video, non-stop. Eventually you find yourself watching videos that you shouldn’t be watching :) and wonder where the time went….

I don’t remember how, but I found myself watching running-related videos. I ran into this amazing 800m finals in the 1972 Olympics in Munich Germany: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LHid-nC45k

I remember watching the Olympics in Greece as a kid, and I remember Dave Wottle and his famous cap. I also remember the scandal when he kept the cap on during the National Anthem in the Award’s Ceremony.

It is interesting that Dave is a local guy, from Canton OH. I did a bit of digging and found that today he is the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Rhodes College Looks like he has gained a bit of weight :)

I also watched parts of the 5K and 10K races in the ’72 and ’76 Olympics, all 4 won by the “flying Finn”, Lasse Viren.

Finally, I saw the 2004 Olympics 800m race (in Athens, I was there, but I don't remember this one) and it is a carbon copy of the 1972 race! Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWsAACwEki4

Actually, YouTube is a fantastic resource, if used wisely.

Volunteering at Hudson 15K race

2009-06-07T14:02:00.001-04:00

Saturday I worked as a volunteer for the 15K Race for the Parks in Hudson. I would have preferred to run the race, but I had to put my 3 hours of volunteering work, a requirement for running the Buckeye 50K race in July. This was the first time I have worked as a volunteer at a race and it was an interesting experience.

I was assigned at the last water stop, in the entrance of a park, before mile 8 (entrance) and around mile 9 (exit). Working with me were chef Bill and a guy named Zachary. Zachary is a tall guy in his early 30s, very nice fellow. He looked familiar. Only later, when I got home, I realized that he is Zachary Lewis, the guy who writes a fitness column in Plain Dealer’s Health section. My wife is an avid reader of the paper and she often tells me about Zachary’s articles. So, I worked on the table with a celebrity, without knowing it.

Since we were only 3 people, handing two types of drinks (Gatorade or water) in two different directions (entry and exit from the park) we were not sure we could handle the job, but “traffic” was low and the weather cool, so things went well.

With this new experience, I now know what’s the best runner’s behavior from a volunteer’s point of view: 1) If you don’t want a drink, just say “no, thanks”. 2) If you want a specific drink, just say “water” or “Gatorade” and try to make eye contact with the person you will grab the cup from. This really helps reduce the anxiety of the volunteers who are eager to serve the runners.

Speedwork!

2009-06-05T13:56:00.002-04:00

I have confession to make: I have never done any systematic speedwork or followed any plan in my running. I just run for the fun of it and I understand (I think) the basic principle of running weekly long runs in preparation for a marathon, etc. Also, it helps to run with faster runners because then even standard training runs become tempo runs.

But now my wife is downloading training plans from the Runner's World web page and she follows them to the letter. She did this for the Cleveland Marathon 10K and now for the River Run ½ Marathon (her next goal race). These plans call for speedwork once a week. Most people in our area do speedwork on Tuesdays, but we take a fitness class on Tuesday (that’s why I have not joined any speedwork groups.) So, the obvious choice for us is Wednesday.

The plans call for two types of speedwork, which usually alternate:
- Tempo Runs
- Speedwork of 400, 800 or 1600m repeats (with jogs in-between)

So, I decided to download a training plan too. As a goal race I chose the Broadview Heights 5K, which is on July 12, put my current marathon time, and selected “very hard” plan. What came out generally calls for:

- Tempo runs (2 increasing to 4 miles) at 7 min/mile
- Speedworks of 800m repeats at 3:11 (6:22 pace) or 1600s at 6:41 pace

If I follow the plan, I should be able to do my 5K at 19:49 (6:22) pace. Anything better than 20 minutes is fine with me (my current 5K PR is 2:06 from 2005 but I have not run a 5K for a couple of years now - I am not counting the “New Year’s Eve 5K” because of the nasty hills, which make it unsuitable for a PR)

I cannot possibly follow the entire plan, because I am also training for the Buckeye 50K, but I can do the speedwork. I have already done two weeks of speedwork (on Wednesdays).

- Last week: Tempo run in towpath, 3 miles at 7.03 average page (6:51, 7:07, 7:12)
- This week: Speedwork at Hike & Bike path, 1 mile at 6:34, 2nd mile at 6:27, then 800m at 6:20 and 400m at 6:10.

We wanted to use the Brecksville HS track but had football practice, so we went to the Hike & Bike path. This is asphalt and it is flat so it is very well-suited for speedwork, with the aid of our Garmin gps watches. The towpath is not well-suited because the surface (crashed limestone) has less friction and leads to slower times.

I like these speedwork sessions… We’ll see if they pay off. I have a good feeling for both the Broadview Hts and Independence 5Ks for an under 20 minute time.

Races Until the End of the Year

2009-05-31T13:52:00.005-04:00

Here is a list of races that I plan to do until the end of the year (my wife will also run most of these, and my daughter some of them):

June 6 - Race for the Parks 15K
http://www.active.com/page/Event_Details.htm?event_id=1705109
I will volunteer to get my hours for the Buckeye 50K. (I have done previously races when it was 4 miles)

June 20 - Jim Klet 5K, 10K
http://www.summitathletic.com/
I have been running the 10Ks for many years. Tough hills make a PR impossible.

~ July 4th - Kent 10K
This is a very small race and nearly everyone (especially women) gets an award. Not sure if it is held this year. I have my 10K PR in this race

July 12: Broadview Hts 5K
http://www.hermescleveland.com/roadracing/events/broadview.asp
I have never done this before but I thought we (our entire family) might enter since it is a local race. This will be my first attempt for an under 20 minute 5K

July 18: Buckeye Trail 50K
http://www.buckeyetrail50k.com/bt50k.html
I have signed up for this. My first race at 50 years old! (but there are no age group awards in this race) I have run this twice already. Tough but good!

August 8: Independence 5K
http://www.hermescleveland.com/roadracing/events/independence.asp
A good race for a 5K PR. I have set my 5K PR here (20:08) but have not run this race the couple of years because we were on vacation. I will aim for an under 20 minute time.

August 16: Perfect 10 Miler
http://perfect10miler.com/
This should be a nice race for my wife too. I have run it the last 3 years.

September 13: Buckeye 5K, 1/2M, or River Run 1/2M
http://www.summitathletic.com/
http://www.hermescleveland.com/roadracing/River_Run/index.asp
Too bad there is a conflict again this year. When the races were one week apart, I was doing both, but the last years I did the Buckeye. This year however, I might try the River Run again, if Liz makes this her first half marathon race. (It is a point-to-point and a downhill course, so it is perfect for a PR or first 1/2 Marathon - it was my first one too)

September 26: Akron Marathon
http://www.akronmarathon.org/
I ran my first Akron marathon last year. The course is tough but the race is fun. I have not decided what to do this year. I would run a family relay or 1/2 marathon. I'd rather not do a full marathon if I am going to run Athens in November.

October 11: Towpath Marathon
http://www.towpathmarathon.net/
I might run the marathon slowly as a training run for Athens, or just do the half. I must do something since I want to support this race.

November 8: Athens Marathon
http://www.athensclassicmarathon.gr/
Yeah!!! The "Classic" marathon. First marathon ever (1896). Older than Boston... I could go on and on but I stop here.

November 22: Fall Classic 5K, 1/2M
http://www.cwrrc.org/
It has become a family tradition.

December 31: Great new Year's Eve 5K
http://www.summitathletic.com/
A nice way to finish the year.

Back to Trails!

2009-05-31T13:35:00.010-04:00

Now that the Cleveland Marathon is over, Trail running is back in our area. For me it is a welcome break from running roads.

Last week I participated in the first group trail run. About 50 runners showed up in Peninsula (see picture, courtesy of Nick Billock). I only ran 10 miles (up to Pine Lane and from there to Boston and Back).

We repeated the same route yesterday but with only 15 people this time. The group went faster this time and I soon found myself running out of energy (I should remember to eat something before the long Saturday/Trail runs). So I fell behind. In the way back (Boston to Pine Lane) I ran on my own and took my time. Despite running the 2nd half considerably slower (with lots of walking breaks) than the first, the overall time this week was faster than the previous week.

The official training runs for the Buckeye 50K start on Sunday June 7th. In the meanwhile a typical week these days looks as follows:

- Monday: Crosstrain (Yoga?), walk or 1-3 mile slow run
- Tuesday: Run to Brecksville Rec Center, Fitness class (4-8 miles)
- Wednesday: Tempo run or speedwork with Liz (this is new)
- Thursday: Run to Brecksville Rec Center, Fitness class (same as Tuesday)
- Friday: Rest
- Saturday: Group Run
- Sunday: Slow run with Liz (6-8 miles) or (soon to start) Group Trail Run

Every Tuesday and Thursday Liz and I take a Fitness class at the Brecksville recreational Center. I try to run there and, if possible, take the back way (down on Snowville, to the Buckeye Trail to Brecksville, up through the trail to Brecksville Road, and from there to the Rec Center, a total of 8.2 miles, 6 of which are on the Trail, part of the Buckeye 50K Trail route). I love this route and it is a good practice for the Buckeye 50K run.

Cleveland Marathon – The Aftermath

2009-05-31T09:22:00.005-04:00

It’s been 2 weeks since the Cleveland marathon and things are going fine. I recovered really quickly with only minor pain/discomfort for a couple of days. My time has been officially changed to 3:22:47 (pace: 7:44) My placement is 191 out of about 2000 marathon runners, and 16/495 in the 45-49 age group. For the fun of it, I tried some other statistics, and I see that I am 5th out of 20 Brecksville residents, 1st out of 10 named “George” and 1st out of 42 marathon runners who are 49 years old.

Here is a picture of me at the finish... I was well aware that my picture will be taken at the finish, so I made an effort to look happy :). Actually, I felt great. I was not too tired or ready to collapse.

When my wife tells me that her legs do not hurt after a race, I tell her that she did not try hard enough. Applying this to myself, yes, my legs were hurting for the next few days, but they did not hurt bad enough. I did not feel the need take an ice bath as I did in previous marathons. And I felt fine at the finish. So, maybe I could have gone faster too. I feel I could have finished at 3:20, but I had no reason to push myself. Also, I have not done any speed training (not only for this marathon, but in general).

The bottom line is that I feel I can improve this time next year with better training and equally good running weather conditions.

Cleveland Marathon 2009 - Great Race + Big PR!

2009-05-17T21:05:00.007-04:00

Hi, I am back!

What happened? I was busy with work. After each race I was going to write a report but I was either too busy or did not have pictures, one obstacle after another… but I am now back.

<- With daughter Lea, after all was said and done

My official goal for the Cleveland Marathon was 3:30, but my secret goal was to beat last year's time (3:26:23) for a marathon PR.

Looking at my training and recent race times, I was at about the same fitness level as last year, so I was hoping for a similar performance.

I followed last year's unorthodox plan, which somehow works well for me... Three weeks before the race I started a strict diet. I was 171 lbs 3 weeks ago (the morning of the Hermes 10 mile race). I then started the Detox diet. This includes a fast the 7th day. I have been doing this maybe once or twice a year and it has helped me and my wife lose weight. We have found that we lose weight on the program without feeling hungry. When this was done, I continued the diet on my own. On Friday the 15th I was down to 162 lbs. I then relaxed and ate better for 2 days, and I was 165 lbs the day of the marathon.

Again, this year, I did not taper much. Only the last week mostly. I took two days off before the marathon (Friday & Saturday - absolutely no running, just lots of eating). So, Sunday morning I was lighter than normal, but with full energy/water reserves.... This plan apparently pays off because I ran strong and I only needed water & Gatorade and no gels, or food, and I don't hit the wall. I ate a few bites in the morning and a sip of Gatorade. I do not believe in over-hydrading that makes runners want to pee during the race (a waste of time).

It was a beautiful day, cool, sunny and a bit breezy... (OK, maybe more than a bit) I started with the 3:30 pace group for the first two miles, which were slow and then moved on my own... My Garmin got messed up and was running 1/3 mile off distance (behind), which made it hard for me to know my average pace and expected finish time (I have it set for average, not instantaneous pace), but I knew I was running fast and was a bit worried that maybe I was going too fast. But I trusted my internal pace regulator... I was running comfortably for the distance and my fitness level.

Pace for the first 8 miles: 8:10, 8:00, 7:30, 7:17, 7:15, 7:27, 7:16, 7:21.

The route takes us through Cleveland West side first, maybe the best part of the race.... I had settled in a nice fast pace but I was surprised to see the 8:20 pace group ahead and came very close to it by mile 8, but eventually stayed behind. Miles 9-12: 7:26, 7:20, 7:22, 7:50.

By mile 12+ we are back downtown (wife and daughter were waiting for me to cheer me up), heading East, and running by the Lake. I did not like the course change this year. I prefer to run through city streets going out of the city and then return by the Lake. Seeing the city by the Lake with the sun behind is a beautiful view, despite the possibility of head wind (which was the reason for the change, but it felt like we had headwind either direction)

The stretch along the lakefront was rather boring. We then entered the East side park. Miles 14-21 things are still going well: 7:44, 7:24, 7:34, 7:46, 7:45, 7:46, 7:51, 7:41. By looking at the clock at mile 20 I can see that I have built a solid 5 minute lead so the 3:30 goal is in the bag, so to peak. Now I even think I have shot at a PR!

Miles 22-26, I have slowed a bit, closer to 8 min miles, but I have no pain or any problems, and I still feel strong: 7:56 7:57 8:02 8:04 7:58. I pass other runners who are slower or are walking these last miles. Finally, I see the finish line, which always makes me happy, and finish the last 0.2 miles with a mild sprint at 6:56m/min pace.

My final time: 3:21:48 (7:42 page - 16/477 in age group and 191 overall)

*** correction: The time has officially been changed to 3:22:47 (still good :))

New marathon PR (by almost 5 minutes) & Boston qualifier! I don't know what it is with the Cleveland Marathon, but it brings the best out of me.

My wife finished the 10K at 56:41 (11/238 age group), an improvement from last year. My daughter finished the 10K at 1:04:25. That's good for her, considering that until last week her longest run ever was only 5 miles.

After the race we stayed around for a while and then went home, tired but happy. As I am writing this, I feel unexpectedly pain-free, and I did not even take an ice bath. You think I could have run even faster? :) Next year!

Two days later: Recovery is going fine. Today I ran 4 miles and took my regular fitness class without problems....