So, You're Saying There's a Chance

As you know, I was squeaked out of qualifying for the April's Boston Marathon last year by about 2 minutes. (Grrr....) 

I tried very hard to acquire a charity bib. Bit by bit, I applied to far more charities than I ever expected to. Approximately 18 in total over the course of about 4 months or so. Alas, I was unsuccessful.

So, it seems like the only avenues remaining are the occasional contest. I applied for the World Marathon Tour -- nope! I looked at the Poland Spring contest, but was ineligible because VA residents were not among those who could apply.

Most recently, the contest for four bibs sponsored by Band-Aid brand bandages. I posted my video a few days ago; today is the end of the contest period. We'll all find out next week who wins those bibs. Grand total of FOUR are up for grabs. Fingers crossed.

Do any of you have direct connections, or close friends/family with direct connections to any of the Boston Marathon partners: sponsors, licensees, and contributors who might be able to acquire a sponsor bib? If I don't get one of the four Band-Aid bibs, an extremely rare sponsor bib likely would be the last-gasp opportunity.

Los Angeles Marathon Making Multiple Headlines

In the lead-up to the L.A. Marathon this past Sunday, there was a sizable outcry (with which I totally agree) related to their decision to allow people who didn't finish the entire course to get finisher medals. The weather forecast was calling for high temperatures in the low to mid 80s (and actually hitting approximately 90). So, given the layout of the course which has Mile 18 very close to the finish line, where people do an "out-and-back" portion to close out the final 8+ miles of the course, the race organizers said they were going to let people have the option of crossing the finish line at that point, for those people who are "having a tough day" (i.e., not responding well to the heat). 

To me, this was a horrible decision to make. It cheapens the medal being a finisher's medal by handing it out to an untold number of people who didn't actually finish the race. Yes, 80s+ temperatures are very hot, atrocious to run in. (I've done it on numerous occasions. Most recently in San Antonio just a week prior, when temps hit around the low to mid 80s by the time I finished.) That's where your race protocols are supposed to take over. At what combined temperature and humidity do you "red flag" the event? (warn people to slow) Or even "black flag" the event? (stop the event from continuing any further) Same as far as ambulances and ER availability is concerned -- if you are overwhelming those services, the event likely needs to be cut short or ended. Alternately, do you have additional water that was placed out on the course? Are participants being "hosed down" by extra impromptu stations along the course? Are there other cooling methods being supplied? Is there any opportunity to start the race an hour earlier so that there is an hour less of blazing sunlight? (This latter one is increasingly difficult the more jurisdictions that would need to sign off on the shifted permit timeframe, but still worth looking into.)

Then, wouldn't you know it, the drama shifted from the finish line as it affects "the mass participation" runners to the finish of the men's elite field. Absolutely astonishing come-from-behind sprint finish with a final difference of 0.01 seconds between first and second place. With about 800 meters to go, there was still a large gap between Nathan Martin (U.S.) and Michael Kimani Kamau (Kenya). The video of the enormous surge of speed that Nathan made to nip Michael right at the tape is astonishing to watch. And Michael had left it ALL on the course, to such an extent that he instantly collapsed as he crossed the finish line. Were it not for Nathan coming on "like a freight train" there, officials could have been a little closer and possibly been able to catch Michael on his way down. But, given what did unfold, they wound up taking him off in a stretcher.

This is all the more devastating a loss for Michael Kamau because of what happened about 90 seconds earlier. There is video that was posted on X showing that a fan (carrying/waving about a Kenya flag) wound up crossing right in front of him, distracting and confusing him enough where he went around the right-hand side of a barrier that he should have stayed on the left side of. He paused for several seconds as he was directed back onto the correct area so he could properly finish. That total stop of momentum and then needing to get back on course and up to some semblance of speed, when you already have all your energy stores nearly totally depleted, is IMMENSELY difficult. That he was able to nearly beat Nathan Martin -- who didn't have anything similar happen to him, so his forward momentum was unimpeded -- is pretty damned impressive. Hopefully there will be enough of an outcry over what happened to Michael Kamau that the Race Director will take measures to make sure there is some semblance of barrier between spectators and the runners during the last, say 1/2 mile to 1 mile of the course; there is no excuse for permitting this sort of thing to happen. Sure, I'm happy that an American won the race, but I would prefer it if it were not at least partly due to the lack of sufficient crowd control.

Beware Daylight Saving Time, Runners!

 

Thanks to the U.S. in 2007 changing when Daylight Saving Time starts and ends, the U.S. is out of sync with the rest of the world when we leap forward and fall back.

Sunday, March 8 marks the beginning of Daylight Saving Time in the U.S., while the rest of the world that bothers with Daylight Saving Time stays in Standard Time for a few more weeks.

So, for those marathoners who have a race in the U.S. tomorrow -- beware, you LOSE an hour of sleep to rest up for your travails. (As opposed to the blessing that is GAINING the hour of sleep in advance of the New York City Marathon every November.)

Lafayette General Zydeco Marathon

Los Angeles Marathon

Petit Indoor Marathon

Hmmm... maybe that's why there are so few marathons on the calendar for tomorrow -- too high a risk that people will be off by that single hour... in the wrong direction.

Enjoy the run! Wherever it takes you.

Run the Alamo... Not-Quite Marathon

The morning started off just fine for me, having gotten to sleep early for Central Time (basically close to my normal East Coast time). Finished my usual prep relatively quickly and got out the door to the very warm morning. It was about 90 minutes before sunrise, and it was already in the mid-60s. Great for walking and spectating, but was a harbinger of the difficult conditions yet to come for those of us running, especially the full marathon.

Just like the Sydney Marathon when I ran it, the city was totally devoid of any advertising related to the marathon. If you didn't already know there would be a marathon being run, you'd have no way of knowing it until/unless you stumbled across the closed roads. There weren't even signs in the immediate vicinity of the "runners village" area pointing people the right way. But I made it to the pacer meet-up a few minutes early despite that.

After a little socialization and a quick meeting setting expectations, and taking a few group photos, we broke, for last minute warm-ups, pit stops, etc. and then lined up. I went to the portapotties, but decided after a few minutes in line (which wasn't moving fast enough) that I had to take the chance of not going one last time before setting out. (Fortunately, that wasn't a problem.) 

But coming back up towards where I understood the start line to be, I was very confused about where I should actually be. I think the first several pace groups wound up lining up a little too close together. In the end, it likely didn't negatively affect anyone -- our signs were totally visible, and people spread out relatively quickly enough after the start, so anyone starting too far back compared to a pacer could relatively easily catch up in short order to their planned group.

The race was a bit behind schedule. In part because the person who was to sing the national anthem was behind schedule arriving to the area. And in part on the fact that he sang "America the Beautiful" first -- not typical; in fact, I've never heard anything other than the national anthem sung immediately before a marathon.

I took a moment ahead of the start to ask the people in my immediate vicinity how many of them were looking to run 4:15 (the time I was pacing). I had not quite a dozen people who appeared to respond.

But, finally, about 5 minutes late, we got to the final countdown.

And we were off!

After a little while, I started to engage in a little bit of chit-chat and found out that one of the people in my group was also named Jared -- one of the two high schoolers in the group. He and his friend Victor (a senior and a junior) were running their very first marathon. What I didn't know until well after the race was that they were taking video approximately every mile marker. It's all the more amusing in hindsight because, as you'll see, at Mile 2, they made a comment for the video that they were a little late... and I pointed out that Mile 2 was a couple of minutes prior.

(Both the videos above are courtesy of Jared.)

The mile markers in the early going of the race were particularly awkward. No one in my group saw the Mile 1 marker, myself included. Without that, I had no good way of helping to calibrate my pace. Annoyingly enough, while my Garmin was showing me one pace through about 1/2 mile (pretty much where I wanted to be), it suddenly dropped to about 20 seconds faster for no apparent reason -- though my pace hadn't changed. So, what was the true pace? I was hoping to figure that out with the marker, but with it unseen, I had to go with what the watch was telling me. OK, so pull the pace back somewhat, great. I'll never get any complaints from runners about recognizing that and doing it.

The Mile 2 marker was a very small sign on one of the cones in the road. (Apparently, as I would find out later, so was Mile 1.) And we passed that when I still had about 0.05 miles to go according to my watch. Oy, great. A short "mile" and, again, in part because of that, my pace was too fast. (At the pace I was running, .05 miles is about 25 seconds or so - a major difference in speed.) And with the new marker, I would "lap" the watch so that the lap distance would start anew, as would the lap pace, so I could continue refining the pace.

And so it would go for the first SIX miles. Each marker was too early. And so, too, my splits were too fast. Try as I might to get closer to what the average should be, because I did *not* want to burn out my group by going out too fast.

Mercifully, I was able to slow it down to closer to 10-minute miles (rather than the 9:40 - 9:44 that it should have been) for the next several miles, to try to bleed back some of that time and help conserve some of the energy stores of my runners. (I don't like the theory of "banking time" and, unfortunately, I unwittingly managed to do so because of the way the course was marked.)

As you can hear in the previous video, I was mentioning to one of the runners right next to me (who asked each mile how we were doing) that we were definitely too fast, that I was trying to rein things in.

Given the excessive heat of the day, as is my wont, I made sure to announce at each water stop that people needed to drink and douse. After the first water stop, where I discovered just how small the water cups were, and many not even half full of liquid, we would certainly need to take longer at the water stops, which would also help some with the pacing issue. Also adding into that decision was the fact that there were very few lengths of tables for each stop, and not many volunteers to help handing out the cups. Often, we had to stop still to be able to grab the cup of water in question. I never like having to stop for that. It's one thing to slow to a walk -- no issues with that -- but to have to stand still, find what you're looking for, take it, and go, I find that grating. And then starting back up, especially in the later miles when legs aren't nearly as fresh nor as forgiving, that becomes increasingly more difficult.

As it turns out, I had a few half marathoners in the group, and they split off at about mile 9 while the marathoners turned the other way. After the split, we were a group of about 6 or 7. 

But the heat of the day was certainly taking its toll. Alas, the high schoolers fell off pace shortly after the half-way point. (Surprisingly enough, not only was there no timing mat to get a split time there, there wasn't even a marker to officially indicate we had gone half way. Really?!) And then, a couple more fell off pace somewhere around Mile 16-18. In that area, though, I caught up with one of the people I knew had started out with the 4:00 group and chatted briefly with him. Given some jokes from earlier that morning when I met him, I joked that his (now former) pacer would give him a good-natured hard time after the finish. What I didn't know until well afterwards (when the pacers met up for post-race lunch/drinks) was that he was a huge bundle of nerves not because of the marathon itself (having run several previously) but because he was carrying an engagement ring, and was set to propose to his girlfriend right after crossing the finish line. (Apparently he had arranged in advance with the Race Director to permit his girlfriend (who was not running in the race) to join him for the last bit to run with him across the finish, setting up the finish line proposal and video/photo. Very sweet.)

I had two last people with me through Mile 20. About 3 hours in (so, somewhere around Mile 17-18) the sun decided it was going to come out from behind the clouds and stay out. That's when conditions really got really bad and took their most severe toll on the runners. 

Around Mile 24, I crossed paths with one other person who I knew was starting in the 4-hour group (who I knew from other previous races). The sun very much did in both him and the person he was running with. He made the choice to continue with the other person's slowed pace to help him out. Definitely a mensch.

Finally in the home stretch, with less than a half mile to go, there was a spot (the 2nd or 3rd of the course) where I was unsure of which direction to go, and there wasn't anyone else running closely in front of me to blindly follow. Thankfully, I turned my head to the right just in time to see one of the arrows being used as course markers about a block away, so I knew to turn to get to that marker and turn. 

And then my watch was telling me I was at Mile 26, but there was no sign to that effect anywhere near. I had no way of knowing how much of an additional calibration I might need to make sure I didn't finish outside my given 1-minute time window. I made sure to keep it at the ~10:10 pace that I had been doing, and thankfully that did the trick, barely. My final time was 4:14:05 -- just inside the acceptable region for my 4:15 pacing.

In the end, after collecting some of the post-race food and drink, sitting down to eat, and chat with the other pacers who were at our finish area table, I took a look at what distance my watch indicated I had run: 25.88 miles. Anyone who runs using a Garmin knows that it will ALWAYS show a distance longer than what your marked/measured distance is, because you are not running all of the tangent lines perfectly, and there's also weaving around people and to/from the water stops -- all of which adds distance on compared to what the official measurement would be. And since I did NOT cut the course (though I came close a few times to doing so inadvertently because of poor/confusing course marking), that means that the course was not just 1/3 mile short, but likely even shorter than that. Taking a quick look at the USATF certification, the only spot that I am pretty certain we ran differently than was measured is the return trip through Mission San Juan. The certification implies that we would be running back along the same exact path inside the mission as we ran going out initially. Instead, what we wound up doing is finishing the circuit of the interior of the mission, if I recall correctly. That doesn't appear to be *much* of a difference in distance, but each such similar difference adds up real fast.

I've since e-mail the race organizers, and they have acknowledged receiving similar feedback from several other runners of the half and full marathon. Enough so that they are starting off with the assumption that we are correct about the course being incorrectly set up. They are in the process of trying to figure out what went wrong and put in procedures to prevent similar issues from occurring in the future. I'm hoping to find out what the actual measurement of the course as-run was. My prediction is that it was closer to 25.75 miles.

After chatting a little while at the finish area and slowly but surely gathering up more of the pacers as they kept crossing the line, many of us went to a nearby bar -- Durty Nelly's. While others had a cold brew, I had a pretty good cheeseburger. (I know, what a shock.)

And they had a great person on the keyboard entertaining everyone.

After hanging out for at least an hour or so, I bade farewell and made my way back to the hotel to shower, change, and recover for a few hours before heading out to dinner. (Rather than continuing to watch the news, I wound up finding a couple of documentaries on Mel Brooks -- hysterical!)

Along my walk, I was caught a bit off-guard by a highly unexpected sign in one of the windows:

Granted, they were closed, and confusingly enough had a couple of lit electrical hanukkiahs, but it was still amusing nonetheless.

In advance of my trip, I had decided that I would go to get barbecue at a restaurant one of my acquaintances is associated with. Along the way, I marveled at the extremely loud (and unexpected, to me) cacophony from several flocks of birds that seemed to swarm everywhere downtown. Apparently they are great-tailed grackles. Here's a large lineup of them, as if Alfred Hitchcock was staging them.

But the sound of them -- oy!

I finally arrived at the restaurant, and was simultaneously encouraged and dismayed at the enormous line outside. Clearly, I picked a supremely popular spot -- surely it must have been as good as I was expecting, to be this busy. Shortly after I got on line, there were a couple of people who had taken the initiative to go in to find out just how long the wait would be. Both times, they returned with the report it would take an hour. I wasn't happy about that, but could deal. But the second person also reported back that they were informed the restaurant was starting to run out of menu items. It was one thing for me to wait an hour to get in, under continuing threat of being bombarded by the birds in the trees overhead. (One woman in line just in front of me actually did get hit by a little something from one of the birds.) I finally landed on a place that, as it turns out, was about 2 blocks from my hotel (as opposed to the mile away that I was).

As I was approaching, I was disappointed with my choice. The place was virtually empty. While the brisket that I did get was ok, it wasn't anything special. Oh well.

While it was certainly a difficult day, it was still a good time. Next up, pacing for Just A Short Run late this month, and then marathon (or longer) #95 for me -- Coast Guard Marathon -- the day after I turn 54 (my 6th race pacing for OnPace Race). Hopefully this time around, the neighborhoods will have traffic controlled well enough so that we don't have it coming at us (even if very slowly) from both directions when we aren't in a protected portion of the street.

No, I Didn't See Pee-Wee's Bicycle

Marathon #94 was in State #20 for me. Slowly but surely I'm getting some extra states with some of my pacing gigs. I don't yet have 50-Stater as a full-on goal, but it is something I'm shooting for long-term.

It's not often -- outside of Disney -- that I have such a blatant in-your-face display of the local landmark in my hotel room as I did when I checked in.

I was quite pleased that the hotel that I got was a little over a half mile from each of the expo and the start line. Certainly made things much easier. And given that I was actually allowed to check in to my room as early as I arrived (about 11:30am), and the expo didn't open until noon, I made sure to grab a bite for lunch on the way. Naturally, I got a good, authentic San Antonio...

...croque monsieur! 

Hey, it was barely off my route to the expo, and was the first place I stumbled across. Given the genuine French accent on the guy behind the counter, the assumption I'm going with is that him immigrated from France and opened up this bakery/bistro. Heck, I was satiated, and that's what matters! No teasing.

I finally met one of the co-owners (Paul Miller) of the pace group company that does the pacing for this race, despite having paced 4 times for them previously. (They have enough races they do that they were always at a different race that was "competing" with whichever ones I was running in.)

I hung around the pacer table for about an hour, chatting with a couple of the pacers and answering several questions from people who were planning on running either the half or full marathon. Then off to the star of the show... the Alamo.

Given how I came in, I happened upon the Alamo Cenotaph first, commemorating the fallen.

And as I am putting together this blog post, I am only just now appreciating the fact that several of the statues that I saw during the weekend have been moved to different locations than normal, presumably because of the amount of construction that is going on in the area.

Susannah Dickinson -- while all of the men were killed by the Mexican army, Susannah and her daughter were among the survivors who spread the word of what happened.

More of the original meaning of Six Flags Over Texas than the theme park.

Sing along... Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier...

The statue of this woman was in an area that was closed off because of additional construction work. Looking her up now, apparently this was Emily West Morgan, the inspiration for the song "The Yellow Rose of Texas" for her allegedly slipping information about Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna’s location to Gen. Sam Houston.

Around the side of the Alamo, opposite the legendary Menger Hotel, is ol' Teddy himself.

A little further down along the plaza from the Alamo were a few more statues.

That night, there was a private event that was held in honor of the 190th anniversary of the battle.

My pre-race pasta dinner at Nonna Osteria was quite tasty. I'm glad that I had made a reservation, otherwise it would have been at least an hour-long wait; definitely a popular spot.

Rather than simply bread being brought out, they brought out cubes of focaccia and an kalamata olive tapenade which was really great. The first bite was a bit bitter, but once I made sure some of the olive oil was part of what I placed on the bread, dang that was good. And then, of course, the main course.

Pasta, shrimp, and chorizo... hard to go wrong!

Back to the hotel room, watched the news for a while, prepped a bit for the race, and hit the sack early.

European Marathon Classics: Abbott World Marathon Majors Wannabe?

Feb. 25, the European Marathon Classics challenge series was launched from Vienna, Austria. 

As they state, "the initiative combines sport, tourism and culture, encourages regular physical activity, promotes responsible participation, and supports integration among runners from around the world."

The EMC challenge comprises eight marathons in:

• Rome (March)
• Vienna (April)
• London (April)
• Madrid (April)
• Copenhagen (May)
• Warsaw (September)
• Lisbon (October)
• Frankfurt (October)

As you complete each marathon, you get a coin/e-coin. Once you complete any five cities, you can get a medal into which these five coins can be placed. (The launch announcement made it sound like they were simply virtual coins and possibly just a virtual medal. The website implies physical items.) Based on the graphics, the coins are relatively underwhelming: each has its own specific color and grayscale version of that country's flag with the name of the city across the top rim of the coin.

As I've said for a while, marathoning is a great excuse for travel. Well, for anyone looking to add more countries to their passport (I know, entry/exit stamps aren't given out most times any more), this seems like a great method. It just might encourage me to go to some of these cities that I didn't have floating all that high on my list of places to visit.

For those who have run one or more of these marathons previously, sometime this summer the EMC will add the ability to put that prior result into your profile. (Neat -- I'll have 1 e-coin at that point, to account for London, where I finished my Abbott World Marathon Majors 6-star challenge journey.)

It will be interesting to see, over the next few years, how well (or not) this challenge is received by the running community. Will the fields increase in size? Or, if they are already capped, will the number of people trying to register keep increasing, making it increasingly difficult to get into them? (Certainly London will be even harder to get into, now. After all, this year over 1.1 million people tried to register for the approx. 50,000 spots.) And if registrations increase for these, will they diminish the number of people registering for some of the overlapping Majors races (Boston, Sydney, Berlin, and Chicago being the most likely to be affected at all -- Tokyo precedes Rome in March, and New York is in November)?

As the tagline for Marathon Talk goes: Enjoy the run, wherever it takes you.

R.I.P., Jeff Galloway

After a decades-long career and inspiring a movement that helped millions of people achieve their running goals, Jeff Galloway passed away at age 80.

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a70444018/jeff-galloway-dies-at-80/

I first started running in 2002 with the goal of finishing the New York City Marathon. During my initial couple of years running, and my first two marathons, I was doing my own thing with trying to increase stamina and, to a small extent, speed. It was enough to enable me to finish, but not without a LONG recovery time.

After the 2003 and 2004 NYC Marathons, I thought I was done running marathons, until I started back up with the 2012 Goofy Challenge and then 2012 Marine Corps Marathon. That was then I heard about run/walk and decided to try it for myself. And, lo and behold, in a relatively short amount of time, I was able to drop the extra time and break the elusive 4-hour barrier. 

I continued to find additional ways to be a stronger runner and drop even more time, but I will always be thankful to Jeff Galloway for providing me the method to achieve my first big marathoning goal after I got hooked on running marathons.

R.I.P.