Are You Ready?

Are you ready for some running? In a few days I’m going to run the second National Marathon here in DC. Not only is it the second running of the National Marathon, it is the second national marathon as well. The first national marathon collapsed just before its second running in 2003. The race was cancelled a few days beforehand in that post 9-11 scaredy-cat atmosphere due to "security" concerns (security as defined in financial terms, I’ll wager). The company folded its tent and filed for bankruptcy. Most or all runners lost their registration money. Some runners were on planes enroute to the race when the marathon went belly-up. There were howls of outrage over, amongst other things, the fact that the company didn’t even hand out the pre-printed t-shirts before it went out of business.

But runners are a hearty breed and many of the registered runners took to the street on the appointed day and ran the marathon route anyway. The results were actually logged. Hey, it counted.

Last year’s inaugural course went through the District and Prince Georges County, where it picked up some brutal hills. Read Bex’s account of running it. This year the race has returned to entirely within the District. That makes members of the 50-state club happy, who are busy running a marathon in each of the fifty states. Many are purists and insist that each course has to be entirely within the particular locale. Not that runners are obsessed. Now they have a pure District option. (The former race of choice, the MCM, starts and finishes in Virginia. Read Bex’s account of Jeanne running it the first time.)

I don’t feel ready to run it. But that’s what we always say before a marathon. At least there’s no frost or rain or snow in the weekend forecast, unlike a week ago.

LPRM Recap Redux. Two weeks ago Bex and I ran the Lower Potomac River Marathon Two-Person Relay in the Coed Division. Our team was the Tortoise and the Hare. I already told you about my mile splits but I did not tell you where we placed. I said to go read Bex’s account to find out how we did. Well, let me tell you how well my running buddy truly did. (Here's John Piggott airborne as he three-peats at the LPRM in a course record time of 2:33:05. Second place Jonathan Krupa was over seven minutes back.)

We came in first in the Coed Division out of eight teams. We were 5th overall out of 27 teams. Four of the nine men’s teams beat us.

I did leg number one, which is 14.6 miles of flat, scenic vistas with water views. Bex did leg number two, which is 11.6 miles of hills along a non-descript highway.

Our time was 3:34:35. I ran my leg in 1:56:41 and Bex ran her leg in 1:37:54.

(Bex legs it out at Milepost 23. Look at that roadway cant!)

At the time I handed off the sweaty sash (it was plastered around my neck the whole way) I was in second place in the Coed Division, but the leader was five whole minutes ahead of me. Bex ran his counterpart down. (Pretty impressive, huh?)

Bex was much faster than any other female Coed Division runner. Only one second-leg Coed Division runner, a guy, put in a faster time than Bex but we

had enough cushion that he never threatened Bex. Who knows what epic duel might have occurred if he had challenged her at the end?

(Hmmm. Where did Bex park her car?)

She was also faster on her leg, by a lot, than nine of the ten second-leg Women’s Division runners. One woman ran the second leg barely a minute faster than Bex, but she, too, never actually threatened Bex.

Bex ran the second leg faster than five of the nine Men’s Division runners and came within half a minute of the sixth. Six Men’s Division runners were faster than me in the first leg but Bex ran three of those runners’ partners down. She overcame handicaps of three minutes, four minutes and five minutes to pass them. Whew.

(Waiting for Bex at the finish line with my friend from work, G. He was 6th overall in 3:03:54, a PR by 9 minutes!)

In my last post, I revealed how much I wanted a plaque when my sister won one once. Well, now I have a plaque of my very own. Thanks Bex! And good luck in the Half on Saturday. See you at RFK.

I'm Back

After running in the 2006 New York City Marathon in early November, I took two months off from racing due to burn-out. (Above: Crossing the finish line in Central Park at New York. I'm to the left under the clock in the yellow shirt with blue sleeves.)

I only raced two 3Ks (13:16 & 13:09) for the rest of 2006. I have been struggling to get back into racing shape this year. I am considering doing a marathon in two weeks but feel woefully out of shape. In a marathon relay I did last month, I ran a 9.2 mile leg and struggled to do an 8:26 pace. I finished the race not being able to hold off any late challengers.

Today I did this Marathon Relay in lower MD with Bex to test my readiness. I did the first leg, 14.6 miles, the flat, scenic part down by the Potomac River where it flows into the Chesapeake past St. George Island. Bex did the hills, 11.6 miles of rolling highway peaks and valleys. After doing the Inaugural National Marathon last year, she laughs at hills.

I'm a low-tech guy but I have a new toy. A Timex Ironman watch that records 100 laps. After watching Bex run the MCM last year I was intrigued with her steady pacing. Like clockwork, she recorded the miles on her Ironman watch and made sure they were between 8:40 and 8:50 miles. Result--she broke through the 4-hour barrier in only her second marathon, something which took me twelve tries.

So after six years of racing, I ditched my trusty Armitron, which only told stopwatch time. This morning I was hitting my new Timex watch each mile. Here are the splits--7:40, 7:38, 7:44, 7:51, 7:51, 7:46, 7:56, 7:57, 8:13, 8:02, 8:07, 8:19, 8:13, 8:15, and 5:02 for the last 6/10ths of a mile. I passed the half-marathon point in 1:44:09, which would be a nine second PR for me. I exchanged the baton at 1:56:41. My average pace for the distance was 7:59.5 per mile. It was a good run for me, but boy, was I glad to hand off. Bex motored off down the highway, ran relay people down whose counterparts had run away from me and hid during my leg, and... Aww, I'll let her tell you how we did.

I ran the inaugural running of this race as a marathon in 2005 in 4:19:24. At the time, it was my second best marathon time. In the first photo below, I am running by the water in 2005 in the scenic first part of the race. The views were just as gorgeous today. If you blow the photo up, you can see the Runner's ID tag, about which I spoke a couple of posts ago, hanging off the shoelace of my right shoe. The second photo shows me in 2005 sprinting to the finish line, having only 18 seconds to spare in order to be able to eclipse my then-second best marathon time.