Time to move

We close on Jun 23rd. It’s been a bit of a struggle dealing with the current owner, but we made it.

Things I really should have known already

Lessons from the 20th Vermont City Marathon (my 7th VCM – my first was in 1993):

Courtyard by Marriott has built a hotel in Burlington next to the Hilton. It’s even closer to the start of the race. And probably cheaper.

The National Running Center booth at the expo has some decent prices. Tim Ritchie (SHS ‘79 classmate) runs a good shop.

When there isn’t a cloud in the sky, wear sunscreen. The VCM course has little shade.

Pack sunscreen.

Don’t make fun of someone wearing a long sleeved white wicking shirt on a sunny day when you’re wearing a black singlet with no sunscreen.

The white sun hat with the neck shade does me no good when I leave it at home. Brown hair does not reflect heat.

Blisters on my feet often feel better after they break.

Water is easier to manage than Gatorade, so it spends less time in the sun at aid stations.

Hot Gatorade sucks.

Counting cadence as I run does help push me forward when my mind is telling me I can’t go on.

If I overdo it during a race in the heat and I’m dizzy and short of breath while standing around afterwards, it’s a good idea to lie down.

On a sunny day, it’s dumb to lie down on a reflective blanket.

3:54:20

Leave the iPod at home

My friend Mark is running the Vermont City Marathon on Memorial Day weekend as his first marathon. He’s been training hard, and like many people listens to music on his MP3 player to pass the time on his long training runs.

The other day he asked me, in my role as his running guru, whether it would be appropriate to wear his iPod during the race. My immediate answer was “No”, and there was no question in my mind that that was the right answer. I didn’t give that answer because I’m some kind of snobby running purist (as much as I appreciate the ascetic qualities of the sport). And I didn’t give that answer because of the supposed safety issues that are causing many events to ban the use of headphones.

The way I see it, while there are many reasons to run, there are only two reasons sign up for a race. Neither reason is enhanced by the use of an iPod.

The first reason is to race. To run as fast as you can, and to beat other people who are running as fast as they can. To maximize your potential in a race, you need to focus on what you’re doing at all times. An iPod is a distraction that you don’t need. Anyhow, while I’m racing is one of the few times when I am truly living in the moment, totally absorbed in what I’m doing. I’m not worrying about work or money or relationships, and I’m not looking for distractions from the pain of the effort. I’m watching that pain closely to ensure I’m absorbing as much as possible without redlining before I reach the finish. I wouldn’t even hear the music.

The other reason to sign up for a race is to enjoy being a member of the running community. As I’ve gotten older (and slower) this reason has become more important. In the course (ha!) of a long race, if you run at a pace that is strong and consistent, but still allows you to talk, you can meet lots of interesting people. You’ll all have at least one thing in common to talk about, and as you converse you’re likely to find others. If you don’t, the natural flow of the race will separate you, and you can move on to another person.

If this is your plan, it’s best to start slow, then ease into your race pace. That way, you will often be the better runner in the conversation, an advantage when you’re trying to run and talk. Not everyone will want to talk, especially those who are running as fast as they can while you’re lounging along. But you can still interact with some of those people, by serving as a distraction or a pacer or an advisor.

Obviously, a MP3 player would interfere with this side of racing. But if you’re looking for distractions while you run, becoming engaged in conversation is much more effective than passively listening to music. While you won’t be running as fast as you possibly could, subjectively the miles will fly by.

So Mark, leave the iPod at home and immerse yourself in the race experience. You’ll never have another first marathon, and you won’t want to miss any of the cheers you’ll hear as you cross the finish line.

Enlightment has a price

No, you’re not.

2008 Avenue of the Giants Marathon

Ruth and I went out to California for the 2008 Avenue of the Giants Marathon (and half-marathon and 10K) on Sunday, May 4. The race is held in the Humboldt Redwood State Park, about 250 miles north of San Francisco. The quickest way from the San Francisco airport to the race is to take US Route 101, a major highway that takes you straight to the race start. Ruth was going to be doing all the driving, and we didn’t want to do both a six hour flight and a boring five hour drive on the day before the race. So Ruth and I flew into San Francisco the Friday before, and broke the trip up by stopping along the way.

Instead of pulling off 101 somewhere, we decided to stay overnight on the Pacific coast in Mendocino. The trip from 101 to the coast took us along CA Route 128, a narrow, winding road through the hills of Mendocino County wine country. The trip was scenic, but slow as there were many twists that needed to be navigated carefully.

The hills continued right to the shore, so we didn’t see ocean until one last turn, when 128 suddenly ended and the coast appeared. After hitting the coast, we continued north on the coastal highway (CA1) along more winding roads, this time on cliffs overlooking the ocean.

In Mendocino, we stayed at the Blackberry Inn, a very nice place on the landward side of the coastal highway with a view of the ocean. Mendocino (pix) is a small, touristy town, with nice restaurants, galleries, and the like. In the summer it’s a busy seaside getaway, but in May it’s pleasantly quiet. There’s about three miles of trail along the cliffs that surround the town and look over the coast, which made for a stunningly beautiful 5 mile run from the Inn around the town and back on Saturday morning. I don’t usually run the day before a marathon, but between stopping to ooh and aah at the scenery, and running carefully to avoid tripping and falling over the cliffs, I didn’t work too hard.

After some browsing and lunch, we headed north along the coast on CA1. Again, the views were stunning. Then CA1 turned back east into the mountains. We thought we’d been traveling on winding roads before, but those were nothing compared to the next stretch. Ruth didn’t get a minute to relax for more than 50 miles, while I kept a tight grip on the Jesus handle as we twisted through, up and down. Tremendous views as long as you didn’t think too much about the possibility of falling off a cliff.

We finally made it to Redway, and stayed the night in a cabin at the Dean Creek Resort. Sunday morning, we packed up and headed the 20 miles up 101 to the race.

The race starts under a 101 overpass at the intersection of Bull Creek Road and the Avenue of the Giants at exit 663. Since the exit was blocked off for the race, runners were directed to leave the highway at the next exit north and drive back to the start. There was ample parking on a dry wash next to the Eel River, but access to the parking from the road was slow. People who didn’t heed the warning to get there at least an hour early were stuck in a line of cars waiting to park. Many of those people missed the start of the race, though with chip timing, that wasn’t a disaster.

The marathon course goes west out and back along Bull Creek Road, then takes a 90 degree turn south and goes straight out and back along the Avenue of the Giants. The half-marathon covers the Bull Creek Road portion.  The 10K starts a half-hour after the other races and goes out and back on the Avenue of the Giants so they’re kept out of the way of the longer races.

The course is very runnable. The first half rolls a little, trending up on the way out and down coming back. The road is a little rough, but not too bad. The second half felt like a nice easy downhill going out, but it’s not much of a downhill, because it felt flat on the way back. Maybe I was just cruising. The only real hill is a bridge over 101 that you go down at mile 14 and up at mile 25 coming back. It’s nothing major, but it comes at a difficult point if you’re running on fumes. The same course is used for the Humboldt Marathon in the fall, with the first and second halves reversed.

The day was just about perfect. It was in the 50s and overcast. Even if it had been sunny, the redwoods shaded most of the course. There was some wind, but the trees shielded us from most of it.

My goal was to run comfortably, finish under 4 hours, and stay injury-free and leave something in the tank for Vermont City on Memorial Day weekend. Ruth wanted to improve on her 2:06+ from her first half-marathon in February.

I ran the first mile or so with Ruth. We hit the first mile marker at 12 minutes, which was slower than we’d planned, then I pulled away. I made it to mile 2 at 18 minutes, so I didn’t take the first split too seriously. Mile markers the rest of the way seemed accurate enough.

The trees were majestic. Their commanding presence and dignity added an unusual aura to the event, meeting every expectation we had when we decided to travel across the country. Every once in awhile, I’d follow a particularly imposing tree up to the sky, but since I wandered a bit if I was running while looking up, for the most part I kept my eyes on the task at hand.

On an out and back course, the first people you see coming back are usually the leaders. The Avenue of the Giants lets slower runners start an hour early to allow the roads to reopen sooner, which meant the first people coming back were some of those early birds. It wasn’t fun to see all those slow runners ahead of me. The first fast runner I saw had a Greater Boston singlet. I checked the results for him afterwards, but didn’t find anyone else from Massachusetts listed.

Since I started slow, once I hit my pace, I was passing people most of the race. I hit the first turnaround a couple minutes under an hour. At about mile 9 I stopped for five minutes at a port-a-potty. That was almost the only time anyone passed me the rest of the way.

There were a large number of Team in Training runners and all those early bird runners, so the first half was more crowded than a typical race of this size. Luckily, I left most of that behind by the turn for the second half. The second half was a pleasant cruse among the trees as the road was much smoother. On the way out I caught up with an older guy working on his 7^th Avenue and we talked for a few miles. He told me he had developed the habit of counting runners he saw coming back after the turn so he’d know where he was. I pulled ahead of him before the turn, then when I saw him on the way back, he said that I was right at 100^th place.

About mile 20, I was passed by someone about my age. It was the first time I’d been passed since the port-a-potty stop. I passed him back when he stopped at the next water station, then spent the next half-mile or so waiting for him to catch me again. When he finally did, I struck up another conversation. Sam was working on his first marathon. He had done lots of cross training (telemark sking, etc…), but his long run was only 13 miles, so he was struggling a bit. I paced him through mile 25, probably going faster than I would have otherwise, and we continued to eat up other runners. Then once we made it over the hill in mile 25, he got excited about the finish and raced in. I sped up some, but didn’t want to kill myself to save a few seconds, so I let him go.

At the finish, we got our medals and I met with Ruth. Turns out Sam was one of the people who had gotten a late start, so his chip time was actually about 10 minutes faster than mine. Since he was 48 that meant he’d qualified for Boston on his first attempt, though that didn’t seem to mean that much to Sam. He was looking at it as a once in a lifetime lark, inspired by a friend who’d been training hard after having a miserable time in his first race.

Ruth and I both had good days. Ruth set a half-marathon PR by over 6 minutes, finishing 9th in her age group in 2:00:27. I ended up finishing in 3:45, 5^th in my age group and 66th out of 347 overall.

Sam turned back to jog out and wait for his friend.  Ruth and I got in the car and headed back to Mendocino, since we’d figured a five hour drive after a race wouldn’t be fun. Monday, we got up, went on a kayak tour (pix) along the shore, then headed back to San Francisco where we spent the rest of the week in the Flower Child Room (pix) in the Red Victorian B&B in Haight-Ashbury..

Post-race, I was ready for my normal run on Tuesday, when I did 8 miles in Golden Gate Park after a hard day of tourism (Coit Tower, Fisherman’s Wharf, and cable cars)(pix). While we were out, we saw the World Famous Bushman. Wednesday, we went to the A’s game (pix) in Oakland. Thursday, we toured the park, running more than 3 miles through some of the gardens, and then returning with camera to visit the Japanese Tea Garden (pix). In the afternoon, we wandered Haight-Ashbury, which is now more of a hippy strip mall than anything else. That night, we went out with one of Ruth’s friends from high school who was currently living in Berkley. Friday, it was the Museum of Modern Art, and then improvised Shakespeare by BATS. Saturday morning, we headed back to the airport for our flight home.

Bushman!

Ruth and I were eating at Joe’s Crab Shack overlooking Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco (get the crab nachos and the BBQ crab bucket). Our food had just arrived when we saw a man sit down on a milk crate on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.  He had a couple of bundles of leafy branches with him.  When he had the bundles arranged to his satisfaction, he used them to hide himself.  Unwary tourists would approach what appeared to them to be a small bush.  As they got to the bush, it would suddenly split, and with a grunt the man would appear.  This startled the tourists, resulting in endless amusement for Ruth and I.  It also generated cash for the man, sometimes from the people he startled, but more often from the crowd of onlookers.

Turns out this was the World Famous Bushman.  He’s been doing this since 1980.  I suppose if he started out today, he’d be the “World Famous Foliage-American”, but people were less sensitive back then.

As we were leaving the restaurant, Bushman went off on a break, leaving his equipment behind.  By the time we finished wandering around the wharf, he’d returned to action, so we got to take a few pictures. He makes as much as $60,000 in a good year, so I guess he can afford to slack off.