Atlantic City Marathon

Once again, Atlantic City proved to be more of a challenge than would be expected. But let's not get too far ahead of things...

Thankfully Atlantic City is close enough for me to simply drive up the day before, and then back after my post-race lunch. In previous years, the pace team was sponsored by a different hotel, but there have been enough issues with them that we switched hotels this year (and are now being sponsored by the AC Race Series itself -- hence the new singlets, too).

Decent hotel room, but the beds are WAY too soft (at least for me). Check-in was a breeze (even early check-in allowed), much easier than our prior hotel (which wouldn't allow anyone to check-in earlier than 4pm, and still had problems at that).

Nice view of the upper end of the Boardwalk and the water from our room.

Facing our hotel, right at the Boardwalk itself, is the Korean War Memorial.

The Claridge Hotel and the Bally's (where the expo was being held and outside of which would be the start/finish line) are connected -- so much nicer a set-up than what we had the last multiple years.

I arrived early enough to take a couple of hours shift at the expo.

It's a small space, but sufficient for the size of the field of runners doing the marathon and half-marathon. This year's shirt for the marathon has a nice design on it, but awkwardly has a hood on it.

There was a constant flow of traffic for the time that I was there. Standard sorts of questions about the course, course profile, how we would pace it (even pace, negative split, etc. -- even effort (which I do) is basically the same as even pace on this course), which pace group they should line up with / how would they find us, etc. Lots of first time racers or veteran racers finally choosing to run with a pace group -- either way, not really knowing how it works. That's what we're there for!

Right next to our booth was a standard sign of those registered* for the race, despite the fact that it says "finisher" on it. After all, there are some people listed who wind up not finishing the race for some reason (and possibly not even starting). *Some people (like some of the pacers, including yours truly) officially registered for the race some time after they printed up this sign, so we weren't listed here. :-(

Wrapped up my shift at the expo about 4pm and went back to the hotel room to prep as much as possible for the morning before heading out to the pacer team dinner/meeting at 6pm. En route, I came across this statue that I hadn't previously noticed -- rather fitting for the weekend.

Despite a fitful night of pretty poor sleep (partly my own issues, but partly because of all of the extra noise from so many of the hotel guests on our floor up through about 1am or so), the morning arrived soon enough. Mercifully, given the timing of the race, having a 6am wake-up was on tap -- "late" by most standards. Quick check of what conditions we were in for showed a difficult set up for us, with very warm temps rising through the 60s, with very bright skies, and strong wind the whole time. Glad I chose to be at the slower end of my range.

Nice view from our hotel at that hour.

After getting dressed and fully prepped for the race, I made sure to bring all of my stuff to the car (since I would be finishing well after check-out), drop off my gear bag (for post-race clothing change and protein shake), and join up with the rest of the pace team for our photo.

There was enough time before lining up in the start chute for me to take a first light (well, just not quite sunrise) photo of the crashing waves on the shore. While not necessarily captured well below, the waves were rather sizable, an ominous portent of the wind that we were already bracing ourselves against.

Finally lined up inside the starting chute, the runners started to gather around the respective pacers they planned to run with, or simply use as their own marker of where they needed to be to self-seed by expected pace. The way that Atlantic City arranges things, they put up a couple of barricades at the back end of a relatively short area for the starting chute, with additional barricades lining either side continuing back. It's as if they think all of the runners would be able to fit into the one area. No, not so. We lined up in such a way so that the pacers faster than 4 hours were in that area, and the rest of us were behind it, but the race organizers never came over to remove those extra barricades that were otherwise blocking the path for the runners going longer than 4 hours. 

With about 10 minutes before the starting horn, I noticed that people were still crossing right-to-left in the area immediately behind those barricades. Clearly, no one had moved them away more closed off the sides of the chute. I took it upon myself to make my way up to the barricades and moved them (with the assistance from one other runner) to close off the cross-traffic. Anyone who wanted in needed to go in through the back (or, ill-advisedly climb over the side barricades). I made my way back to my approximate starting location where my fellow 4:15 runners (or 2:07:30 half marathoners) would most likely still be gathered.

Soon enough, we were off! Thankfully, this year I didn't trip on the boardwalk on my way across the starting line (or anywhere else, for that matter), and the tight crowd actually spread out quicker than expected -- maybe only 1/4 mile out. I was able to find my group, as many as a couple of dozen total between half and full.

By and large, the course is flat, though it does have some hills in the first 2+ miles, basically comprising overpasses and emerging from a tunnel just after Mile 2.

Throughout the race, we were being battered by the wind from all sides. Despite my advising people to try to tuck in next to or behind someone to minimize effects of the wind, I'm not sure how many actually tried to or were able to take advantage of that advice.

We run the first 7+ miles on city streets near the north end of the boardwalk before making out way south along it until about Mile 14 or so. (The half marathoners peel away from us at Mile 11.5 and double-back on the boardwalk towards the finish line, generally unaccompanied by pacers.) Once we exit the southern end of the boardwalk, we run around other city streets before returning to the boardwalk for the last approximately 4 miles. Alas, they only had one photographer on the course, so aside from start and finish photos, Mile 2 is the only other photo that was taken.

As is my habit of noticing, the water stops were lacking. Not in number nor in quantity of fluids available (it seemed like there was plenty), but in consistency and ease for the runners. There was no predictable order of whether water or Gatorade would be first, nor a standard differentiation of types of cups (some had only Gatorade green cups, some only white cups, some had both). And some of the volunteers were holding two cups in one hand -- actually a difficult thing to reliably snag just one cup, let alone when one is water and one is Gatorade. It would really be nice if races could get this very simple logistical issue correct.

Another difficulty, which they will hopefully remedy for next year, is the directionality of the course. It's tricky enough dealing with all of the "civilians" on the course -- not just spectators who might encroach the course, but the random visitors to AC who are just out and about on the boardwalk, not necessarily recognizing nor caring that there is a race underway and to pay a bit more attention than they might otherwise normally.

Visualize, if you can, a large group of people running down the left-hand side of the boardwalk (since we need to get around the start/finish line which is on our right as we run past it at around the 9 mile (?) mark). At about Mile 11.5, the half-marathoners make a sharp U-turn and continue back towards the finish line. If they were doing things correctly, they would stay on *their* left side of the boardwalk and go straight into the finish area about 1.7 miles later, as those of us still outbound are on *our* left side of the boardwalk. However, for some unknown reason, the vast majority of half marathoners on their return segment crossed back over and were running directly at the outbound runners on OUR side of the boardwalk. What the heck? Why did they do that? Not only do they now have lots of people running at them, but they're adding distance both to get to that side and then to cross back through that same traffic to get to the correct side to finish. The race desperately needs to have some semblance of signage to make it clear that runners should always be on the left side of two-way traffic.

Similarly, when we exited the southern end of the course, at least for me, we were pointed on the right side of some cones, so we naturally (though illogically) stayed on the right side after we made our next turn. In a short time, we had a police motorcyclist driving at us honking his horn, as he had one of the lead runners behind him. This got us back onto the correct -- left -- side of the two-way flow.

And there were other areas where there was two-way flow where there wasn't a clearly marked off lane for each direction, and some people ran on the outside of the cones -- bad move, since the roadway was OPEN for vehicular traffic still.

After the half marathoners split off from us, I still had a core of about 8-10 people who were running the marathon. There was one extremely eager lady who was definitely engaged in any of the conversation who was doing her darnedest to stay with me for the whole time. Unfortunately, the heat and wind took enough of there toll on her at about mile 20 where she started to fade. (She finally finished in about 4:27. Not shabby.) Most of the others also faded off in the traditional 18-21 mile range. For the first time in quite a while, I actually had one person stick with me basically the entire time (though there were many times I had to rein her back in as she started to drift forward to early). Once we hit the Mile 25 marker, I made sure to tell her that any time between then and the Mile 26 marker, if she was feeling good to break in front of me, and that regardless, once she hit the Mile 26 marker, she *must* give it all that she had left in the tank. She drifted up from me about Mile 25.5 and finished nice and strong. 

I finished probably about 10-15 seconds behind her, in 4:14:34, just four seconds off of the "pin" for the 4:15 pace I was running. Amazingly enough, almost all of the pacers were within 1-4 seconds of the pin.

There was a guy who was lying down in the finisher's chute a little further up out of frame, not being tended to by anyone. I wound up bringing him a Powerade and a couple of bags of ice. Definitely hit the spot and enabled him to recover relatively quickly thereafter -- and he had already been lying there for at least 5 minutes untended-to.

This year's medal is pretty nice, and has a nice "surprise" when you open it up.

For those interested in seeing all of the different race medals (though not the challenge medals) that were available during the weekend:

Learning the lesson of the Air Force Marathon this year, I made sure to take off my shoes and socks as quickly as I could after getting my bag to put on my flip-flops and try to prevent blisters as best possible. (It seems to have worked.) I drank my Muscle Milk (fast infusion of some protein), had a banana and really good New York everything bagel, and change my shirt and shorts (so I wasn't sitting in that for the next 5+ hours prior to getting home and taking a shower), and then went for my obligatory post-race burger and shake.

Took about 4 hours of driving to get back home, and then after taking plenty of additional recovery time, post-race dinner (since there was nothing in my apartment that I could possibly cook -- nor did I want to be bothered, either).

This is the second year in a row that I missed the pre-race  Elevated Running & Pacing team meeting for the Marine Corps Marathon, being held this coming Sunday (for which I'm pacing the 4:05 group), but was able to watch the recording. This year MCM is going to be HUGE for its 50th anniversary. More on that in the coming days pre- and post-race. Stay tuned!

Forecast

Well, the forecast seems to have shifted a bit. Hopefully it will continue to do so over the course of the week, for the better.

It will be reasonably warm at the start -- so long as we're not standing around in the rain and wind. Hopefully any rain that comes in will be after the race has begun. Having that persistent relief for the temperature works nicely. A simple light rain, maybe sporadic in nature rather than constant? That'd be nice.

We'll see soon enough what the Jersey shore holds in store for us!

Good sign?

The government has been in a partial shutdown since October 1, and there is no predictable end in sight. There have been a couple of races in different parts of the country that have been canceled because of the shutdown -- as I understand it, because part of the respective courses were set to go through federal property.

So, naturally, everyone set to run the Army Ten-Miler (ATM) and/or the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) have been concerned that either/both of these races would be canceled because of the federal property that they make use of/run through. Both stage their runner's village in the Pentagon parking lot, at the very least. And there is a sizable number of volunteers and staffers of these races who are Soldiers or Marines. But since they are not performing duties that relate to protecting life and property, most expected that the races would be canceled if the partial shutdown wasn't ended in time.

Well, despite the ATM saying they would make an announcement on Oct. 8, they delayed by an extra day and sent out notification (below) indicating that the race would go on.

Even though they are put on by two different organizations, this gives those of us running the MCM in a couple of weeks hope that the race will go, even if the partial shutdown is still ongoing at that time. Based on prior precedent, in such a case, MCM Organization will likely make their announcement approximately Oct 18-20. But ATM's action today has given a sense of hope to the 40,000 people who are planning on running MCM.

Fingers crossed it all works out, one way or the other! 

Side Benefit of Shutdown

I usually go to the gym after work; it just works much better with my schedule. And given that, my running workdays is on the treadmill, as I don't dare run on the local streets during rush hour nor do I want to run in the heat that still abounds at that hour despite a trail behind my apartment complex.

But now that I'm temporarily furloughed during this shutdown, I get to wake up later than normal if I want, and I can run on the W&OD trail in what looks to be glorious, cool running weather. Heck, I may even need to wear my sleeves to stave off the chill in the early miles. Nice!

After all, it's all about my running -- naturally! :-)

Applications Almost Opened

Boston Marathon charities officially open their application processes on Monday, Sept. 29. The full list will be available on the BAA website. (There are actually a few that have already opened a bit early.) There are lots of different options to choose from. Last year there were 176. According to the BAA's press release this past June, the combined total of donations raised across all of these charities was a whopping $50.4 million. And since the charity program started nearly 40 years ago, donations to the myriad charities have raised an astonishing $600 million+.

Whether you are directly fundraising, on a charity team or not, please donate to charity. Choose one that speaks to you and what you care about. If you work for an employer that does some form of company match, investigate how you can take advantage of that to augment the impact of your donations even further. While $5 or $10 might not break the bank for you, when multiplied by a large number of donors, those dollars add up to serious funds that can have a profound impact for the better. 

For those with children, encourage them to donate to a charity, too. At some point when I was in elementary school, I saw my neurologist on the MDA Telethon every year. From the first time I saw him on the program, I donated, even though at such a young age it was a very small amount. But it got me in the habit, not just of donating to that one charity (which I've done likely for well over 40 years, now), but it fostered the willingness to donate to others. At different points over the years, I have also been part of various fundraising efforts. 

Yet again, I will be going beyond "simply" donating to a charity to actively fundraising for it. More details to come in the near future.

4:34 -- Squeaked Out!

("Squeaker Pack" items created by "Boston Squeakers 4 Lyfe" Facebook member Lani Teshima)

Well, it's finally official. Earlier today, BAA announced that they accepted 24,362 runners out of the 33,249 applicants.

What was the breakdown of these speed demons:

BQ minus 20 minutes or better: 5,397

BQ minus 10 minutes to 19:59: 8,961

BQ minus 4:34 to 9:59: 10,004

Apparently 719 accepted applicants are Streakers -- they have completed at least 10 consecutive Boston Marathons. These individuals do not need to have any buffer. Those who have 10 to 24 consecutive Boston Marathon finishes simply need to achieve any BQ (irrespective of buffer) to get a spot. Those who are in the Quarter Century Club (25 Boston Marathon finishes or more) simply need to finish the Boston Marathon within the time limit to earn their spot in the subsequent year's race -- no BQ time needed at all.

If I can manage to obtain a bib for next year's marathon via one of the 160 charities that partner with the marathon, I will have my 10th consecutive Boston Marathon and become a Streaker -- needing any BQ irrespective of buffer. And given that I "age up" in time for the 2027 marathon, I will gain an additional 10 minutes to work with in achieving it. (Hopefully they won't tighten the standards again QUITE so fast, eating away at this benefit.)

More in the coming weeks with respect to the charity team I wind up being accepted onto. (Positive mental attitude!)

Air Force Marathon (part 2 of 2)

Morning finally arrived, after a somewhat restless night. Somehow, I managed to wake up exactly at 4:45am. And it was not because of the alarm that I had set for that exact time. Confused by the fact that the phone had NOT gone off, I checked my alarm. And, wouldn't you know it, even though I was wide awake when I set it the prior evening, I left it at PM. D'oh!

Given how many people were staying downstairs, part of the time that I was getting ready I chose to come upstairs. And, already laid out (presumably from the night before) was the spread of breakfast snacks at our disposal:

When recounting my alarm situation a little later to pacer Paul (who had been there last year, too), and to Charles and Diane, I noted that the spot that Alex had slept in last year -- which is the spot that I was sleeping in this year -- was officially "cursed." Last year, Alex fully overslept (being on the wrong time zone and having just arrived a day earlier from a trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro) and wasn't awakened until the time we were all set to get out the door, only to be the navigator in the lead car. Hopefully that didn't bode poorly for our trip to the parking area.

We left only a few minutes later than originally planned and actually made it down to the parking area we intended. But the inefficiency of the coordination between the race and the Air Force was evident at this point with a huge back-up of cars both arriving from the highway we were on and on a separate feeder street. Very slowly, each car had a separate conversation with an officer who would either shuttle them along (like us) because of having the appropriate parking pass or, quite frequently, have them take a U-turn to go to the parking area for the majority of the runners and spectators. There had to be a better way of doing this, but even though this was the 29th running of the marathon, they haven't figured it out yet.

We arrived close to 6:30, as planned, to make our way over to the pacer tent, gather up with the other pacers, hand out the signs, have a quick meeting and photo, and get going.

OnPace Race video

As happens at many of the military races, there were some service members parachuting down with the flag. Always a neat sight to see.

(Photo by Tom Gilliam)

(Photo by Tom Gilliam)

I barely managed to get my phone out in time to catch the second one landing just a few yards away (there was no time to set it to capture video), so it's a drop blurry:

Just before the start of the race, we had a flyover from the Stratotanker, and there were a couple of additional flyovers during the initial miles of the race.

(Photo by Tom Gilliam)

(Photo by Tom Gilliam)

And we were off! While it was comfortable to stand around at the start, we were in for a hard day with the forecast.

While I didn't get a terribly loud reply from the people who were running for 4:20 with me and my co-pacer Edward when I tried to engage them early on -- so I didn't really know how many there were who were looking to stay with us -- after the race spread out a bit and we had a clearly defined core group, it was approximately a dozen who were with us.

A few people would engage in conversation (bucket list races, who were the first-timers in the bunch, etc.), but most of my interaction was reminding everyone at each water station to not only drink but to throw water over their heads to try to keep cool. And given how tiny the cups were, to do so with many cups.

This brings me to my biggest pet peeve with most races, and certainly for this one. The size and organization of the water stations was horrible! 

1) There were maybe two tables' worth at each station. It's a VERY SHORT zone to have to hit on the run. Mercifully, Edward and I had planned from the get-go to be walking the water stops to help us bleed off some excess time that we know would be continually baked into running a slightly over-fast pace. While it didn't affect us TOO much, there were still bottlenecks and near collisions on multiple occasions.

2) The cups were CRAZY SMALL. You know the size cup of water you get at the dentist's office to swish and spit? Yeah -- THAT small. I'm sorry, but you have a notoriously hot race with a forecast that jibes with your typical high temps, and you have cups that can hold MAYBE 2 ounces in them when filled to the brim? And you expect people to be properly hydrated? Come on! (Boy, am I glad I carry my own water for drinking on-course.)

3) There was ZERO consistency in terms of the order of water and Hoist (which is similar to Gatorade). Sometimes one came first, sometimes the other. Sometimes they were intermixed. And not all of the stations had signage making it clear on approach -- but those that did I appreciated very much. But still, every time I was looking to grab a cup of water to douse over my head, I looked into the cup before taking. On a good number of occasions I withdrew my hand ("No!") because it was Hoist. While I'm fine drinking Hoist after a race, my eye was on water for dousing and keeping cool.

4) All of the tiny cups were the same -- plain white. There was no way to distinguish on approach which had water and which had Hoist.

While the Air Force Marathon weekend (between its 5k, 10k, half marathon, and full marathon) gets 8500 participants, the full marathon is a small field (fewer than 700 finishers this year) and the half marathon doesn't overlap much. And much of the time is spent on a portion of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, so it is not possible to have spectators along much of the course. That makes it all the more difficult -- at least for people like me who thrive on the energy of the cheering crowds.

At a couple of different points on the course, I noticed some in the group struggling -- huffing and puffing rather quickly. Each time I engaged, asking whether they ever paid attention to their breathing; both said they never did. I advised them to try to slow down their breathing -- that such fast breathing was a clear signal of over-exertion, and that they should typically try to keep a slow steady rhythm to their breathing (noting my breathing in 3/4 time to any songs that I think about). While the advice temporarily helped (and will hopefully be something they keep in mind in the future), they each were not able to stick with the pace, unfortunately.

That makes the Fly Zone in Fairborn a really fun relief just after Mile 14. Not only do they have a couple of unique aid stations (popsicles -- which I avoid, but co-pacer Edward took advantage of) and bacon (which I gleefully took advantage of, but Edward totally avoided), but by this time, there were multiple houses and stores that already had some great Halloween decorations up. Alas, given my pacing duties and not already having my phone out primed to take photos, I didn't get any photos.

Then, a few miles away, we departed from Fairborn, and just before one of the many sprinklers that homeowners set up to spray runners on the course, there was a tray marked "Bacon Candy!" Naturally, I had to investigate. Sure enough, it wasn't candy, but it was candied bacon -- in this case, bacon that was coated in honey. Scrumptious! While, sure, bacon is technically something "new" on race day (as it is not part of my normal training regimen), I always feel it's worth the risk. It's a short enough time that I'll be running afterward that the grease (typically not a runner's friend shortly before or during a run) could possibly hit my system poorly, the extra salt, change of flavor profile, and boosted endorphins are a great benefit.

The other main logistical problem was three missing mile markers. While missing the marker at Mile 8 and somewhere shortly after half-way weren't really big deals, not having a Mile 25 marker is a huge issue for pacers. It is our last opportunity to "course correct" our pace -- something we should be doing at every single mile marker. 

It is at this point that we know just how much time we need to either make up (because it looks like we will be finishing over our time goal) or bleed off (because it looks like we will be finishing more than one minute under our posted time goal). As I clicked a "manual lap" at each marker, I had a reasonably good idea of approximately where the marker should have been, and that we were a little on the fast side, but still within our good range. Take it steady, don't get caught up by the energy of the finish line, and we'll be fine.

Air Force Marathon video

Sure enough, we finished just inside our target zone.

We were waiting until the last of the OnPace pacers finished before departing, since Bekah needed to have all of the pacer sticks to ship back to the company for subsequent races -- I took as much advantage of that time as possible for my near-term recovery, eating and drinking what I could. Silly me, though, I didn't wind up switching out of my sneakers and socks and into my flip-flops before departing, as I should have. Hello beginning of blisters!

On the way back to the car, I managed to get a photo with Tailwind, which I didn't get at the expo.

Finally back at the Shininger household for another shindig. After showering and changing, it was time to have a good post-race cookout lunch: hamburgers (I had two), cheese-stuffed brats (others had several), potato salad, baked beans, cookies, various chips, etc. Definitely hit the spot. 

While originally I wasn't planning on going in the hot tub, I ultimately decided to join in. It was just three of us, as by that point most of the other pacers had departed (given other plans for the day/weeekend -- including a couple of them pacing another marathon on Sunday). But, boy, the hot water overall, and the water jets both on my back and the balls of my feet were really helpful for the recovery (having already used my Normatec boots earlier, post-lunch).

Sunday morning arrived, and after a simple breakfast and sitting around chatting for a while, Charles and I headed over to a nearby park (Charleston Falls Preserve) for a short hike -- get out of the house and aid my recovery my continuing to move a bit. Pretty scenery and a decent chat, both about our respective backgrounds and details I could provide about the various Marathon Majors (Bekah has several more majors to run before she completes her six-star journey).

After a final reprise of the pasta dinner for lunch, Charles generously drove me over to the airport rather than my taking an Uber.  Short flight later, and I was finally back home, after rather a whirlwind of a weekend.

The biggest "pro" for being on the pacing team for this particular marathon is the overly gracious and generous hosts -- the Shiningers. They very much help foster a sense of camaraderie among the portion of the pacers that join the shindig. The biggest "con" is the race itself -- it is just so HOT and difficult. I don't know about repeating again at least for next year -- especially as there are SO many other races in and around this same time which I would also have the opportunity to run as a pacer. We'll see. I need a little temporal distance from the difficulty of this race so I can come to a more rational decision.