Grasshopper and Po

The phone rang yesterday and I picked it up. "Hello, this is Peter."

"You’re responsible for this, you know."

"Excuse me?"

"It’s your responsibility that this happened. I just wanted you to know."

I didn’t recognize her voice right away. In this age of emailing instead of calling, a person’s phone voice is not always immediately recognizable. I stalled for time. "What am I responsible for?"

"My BQ."

Ahh. Running. "You BQ’d? Congratulations!" I was still stalling.

"Yes, and I owe it in large part to you for getting me started down this path, coach."

A running pupil. I ran through my trainees at the recent ATM Program I completed, just before my association with my running club blew up in a generational conflict over respect, fealty, honesty (ethics) and dedication to others, or lack thereof, and I resigned. "No, I didn’t do anything. You did it all." Still stalling.

"You don’t know who this is, do you?"

"Give me a hint."

"Long runs, track training, my first coach."

"Uhhh..."

"You paced me in the Marine Corps Marathon..."

"OMG!"

"Yes! And I BQ’d yesterday in only my second marathon, with a 3:40:56."

"That’s right, you were going to run a marathon in California."

"Yes, the California International Marathon in Sacramento."

"Wow, how did it feel to make it by four seconds? Were you crazy that last mile?"

"Uh, actually, Peter, I needed a 3:45, not a 3:40."

"Wow, you crushed it!" (Right: Me and my former pupil before the 2008 9/11 5K at the Pentagon.)

I thought back to coaching she in 2006, when she first showed up midway through the program in a small group I was leading. I had the fast group and she could keep up from the start. I ran with her in track that year, too. She was dedicated.

I subsequently asked her to coach in programs I directed, and she became a valued member of my coaching staff who I came to depend on. She progressed to where in 2008, she became the first, and so far only, student of mine who has bettered me in a race. This has happened more than once.

The first time it happened, I hoped it was an anomaly. Due to the staggered start (the women started after the men), she never actually passed me during the race. But then she started showing an annoying tendency to catch up with me in the last mile of long races, and crushing me the last mile.

At last year’s MCM, her first marathon, I "helped" her out by jumping in with her at MP 11 and pacing her the last 15 miles. Me, the veteran of seventeen marathons, showing the rookie how to do it.

Shortly after we passed MP 25, she kicked up the pace by several notches during her twenty-sixth mile and my fifteenth. She left me in the dust, far behind as she burned about a seven-minute last mile to finish in 3:51. I couldn’t keep up with her. (Left: Me and my former pupil after the 2008 9/11 5K at the Pentagon. This marked the last time I finished ahead of her.)

Now she has surpassed my marathon PR by almost ten minutes. It is a poor teacher whose pupils do not surpass him.

Congratulations Sasha, my good friend.

Charmin Garmin

Guess who got a Garmin. A factory refurbished 205 from Amazon for $120.40. It came on Friday.

I broke down and bought one because I need to zero in on a 9:00 M/M pace for when I'm the 1:30 pacesetter for the Army Ten-Miler Race in seven weeks.

I used it on Saturday, and now I know I went 7.1 miles on my training group's supposed 7-mile run. (I create the route.) Some folks got a little lost and went 7.6 miles. They were pissed when they got back, like it was my fault. But what's an extra half mile anyway?

Even the folks who didn't get lost were grumbling though. What's an extra one tenth of a mile? They all have Garmin's so they all know exactly how far we go. More than one came over to me afterwards and said, "You said we were doing seven today. We went 7.1!"

I told them to stop at the end of the block next time, before they reach the finish point, as soon as their Garmins chime.

What's 500 extra feet? Excuse me, 520 extra feet. These are new runners, for the most part.

This morning at 7:30 I went to Fleet Feet in the District to do a 7-mile route in Rock Creek Park with Sasha's training group. That group was late in getting going, so I said I was leaving and that anyone who wanted to do 8:30s could come with me. I had no takers so I ran alone, ahead of the pack.

Sasha had devised kind of a complicated route but I thought I knew it. Run 3 miles north up 16th Street from Adams Morgan, drop into Rock Creek Park by Carter Barron Amphitheatre and double back south towards Fleet Feet again. How hard could it be?

My Garmin kept me occupied on this solo run. Sometimes it showed my pace to be 8:10, then a few seconds later it would tell me my pace was 9:40. I think I need to read the directions. But I enjoyed watching the mileage tick off. When my Garmin got to 6.5 miles, and I didn't see anything I recognized in Rock Creek Park, I exited the park and got into some residential streets I didn't recognize. The route was supposed to be 7 miles so at 6.5 miles, I figured I had to be near Adams Morgan. I asked some suburbanites I encountered how to get to Adams Morgan from there. They looked astonished.

"Uhh, you're in Maryland. Adams Morgan is, like, six miles from here."

I had been running north in Rock Creek Park the whole time, instead of turning back south in the park. I was terribly lost and now I was in a confusing complex of suburban cul-de-sacs in Chevy Chase. That's a long way on foot from Adams Morgan.

I am thankful for my Garmin though. It told me I only had a half-mile to go and when I absolutely didn't recognize a thing, even though I'm a guy, I asked for directions.

It was the most lost I have ever been on a run.

But I did my seven, in 1:01:21 (8:46), not too bad. I took a taxicab back to Fleet Feet.

The bug bites deep

I have a hard and fast rule in life. I never disagree with a pregnant woman or a first time marathoner. The answer is always, Uh-huh. Peanut butter at 3 a.m? Sure. Can't do it? Uh, huh.

Sasha just ran her first marathon on Sunday, the MCM. Recently in training, she put me away in the twentieth mile of a 20-miler we did, a race. She scorched me the last mile, after I was so proud that I had HdTFU and caught back up with her from 20 meters back at MP 19.

But she still wasn't ready. Knee hurt. Lost a day. Ran slow. Was tired. Had to travel. You know.

She emailed folks saying she wanted to do 4:00 (she put it out there) but feared she only had a 4:15 inside her instead (we all should be so lucky!). She didn't know, but maybe marathons weren't her thing.

So she merely reeled off a 3:51. Whew.

And yesterday she emailed that the California International Marathon in December looked good. Maybe her BQ of 3:40 was there. This race is evidently the Left Coast equivalent of the Steamtown Marathon. Do you suppose she spent the morning after, when she should have been sore and shuffling around her house quaffing aspirins, surfing marathons on the Internet instead?

She's gone down hard. You go girl.

Sasha's first marathon.

Over the weekend I took a coaching certification course offered by the RRCA, along with six other coaches from my club’s recently-completed 10-Mile Training Program. It was an intensive session of two 9-hour days, on Friday and Saturday. What we learned was that almost everyone runs too fast for proper endurance training almost all the time.

It has to do with how the body fuels itself during long races, whether it uses fat or glycogen, and how the body deals with lactate. It has more to do with time on your feet rather than intensity of your run, a classic case of less is more. You can’t skimp on the hours (miles) you run, but less intensity over the same time or distance is most often more beneficial, as you train your body to push its lactate threshold further out (the point where the production of lactate exceeds the body’s ability to disperse it). Also you want your body to start using fat for a fuel earlier so you don’t deplete your glycogen store so quickly. Very technical and very thought-provoking stuff in terms of training.

Sasha was there taking the course. She also ran her first marathon yesterday, the Marine Corps Marathon. I have avoided her these last few weeks, as she had a classic case of first-marathonitis. She wasn’t ready. Her knee hurt. She got sick three weeks ago and missed a couple of training days. She only did one twenty miler. You recognize the symptoms.

In the class late on Saturday, she went to fetch another chair upon which to prop up her balky knee. Carrying it across the floor over to her chair, she dropped it accidentally four times in a row. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Then five restless minutes later, she abruptly got up and left. Man, she had a marathon to do the next morning!

I looked at another veteran marathoner and wagged my hand as if to say, She’s on the edge! We both chuckled, after first making sure that she didn’t see us laughing.

I went out to MP 11 on the course yesterday morning to run the last 15 miles of the marathon with her. At least, that was the plan. Remember, I used to coach her. Now she is a valuable coach of mine in the club programs I actively direct. I was going to help her out.

Today I am sore as heck. She was awesome. She smashed her objective of finishing under four hours. When she came by and I hopped in, we ran a steady stream of 9 minute miles from MP 11 to MP 22. Then suddenly I hit the wall, not her. Our pace was actually creeping up at that point.

So I dropped out at a water table to fill up her fuel belt bottles. I picked her back up at MP 24, having rested myself, and I noticed that we did an 8:04 on that next-to-last mile. I could barely keep up.

Then she kicked up the pace in the last mile into a scorching sub-8 range and dropped me off the back end. I called out "Good Luck, Sasha!" as I ground to a halt and she left me behind! She waved goodbye and kept on blazing up the road. She finished her first marathon in 3:51.

Obviously I created a monster.

A twenty-miler.

A week ago I ran a 20-mile race. After not running much all summer, I was happy to see that I still have that as a base, apparently. I made it the whole way, albeit in my slowest time ever for a 20-miler, 3:19:43 (9:59).

A friend of mine is going through typical 1st-marathonistis as she gets ready for the MCM, bemoaning that she isn't ready, can't do it, etc. She determined to do this 20-mile race as a test of her conditioning, because she had never run past 16 miles before.

As a surprise to her, I showed up at the race too. We ran together. I ran at her pace the first ten miles, 10:30s. She can run faster than that but she was afraid of crashing and burning.

Then when she was confident she could finish the race, she dialed down the times. Soon miles were flashing under our feet at 9:15s. We passed by MP 19 stride in stride. But I don't care that we did the first ten miles at a relative snail's pace, and that I had saved some gas in my tank the first half of race. It had no effect in that last mile. Nineteen miles at my age is nineteen miles.

Youth was served. (She's 20 years younger.) She found a new gear, one which I didn't have anymore at this late stage of the race. I wished her well and told her to pick off all those runners ahead of us as she moved out. She was two blocks ahead of me as we went into the final turn leading to a concluding lap around a school track. I fell behind a minute or two more when I stopped at my car in the parking lot before I finished and rummaged around in it for my camera.

It was a good training run. I was pleased that I was able to run the whole way without having to walk. I worry that I couldn't respond in that last mile but that's the way it is. My friend is ready though!

National Half Marathon-A Quick Report

The third National Marathon and Half Marathon is over! Local phenom Michael Wardian three-peated in the marathon, setting a new course record (he sets one here every year) in 2:24:59. When I left, they announced that the mayor was on course for a finish of around 3:40. That's for the full, not the half. As Mayor Fenty says of all other mayors in the world, bring 'em on. When we ran by Fleet Feet in Adams Morgan, the mayor's Dad was outside of his store cheering the runners on. A local high school band was doing a racy number up by McMillan Reservoir when we were all fagged from the long climb up there. DC is great!

The weather was perfect, overcast, 42 degrees and only a little wind. Everyone in the Reebok SunTrust National Half Marathon Training Program I am associated with did great! Matt was done in time to set up his camera and take pictures of runners as they finished. His two stars, the ones whose dust I ate at the Wednesday night track workout, both broke 1:40 (one of them closer to 1:30, I think). Sasha overhauled me in the last mile, chatted politely for a minute and then blazed off to a 1:44. I don't know everyone who ran, but one student did a 1:58 and another did about a 2:02. (Above: Sasha 200 yards from the finish. How is it that she is still smiling? Photo credit Matt.)

(Left: Me 200 yards from the finish, trying to hold on. Photo credit Matt.) My time was 1:45:35, my second best Half Marathon, 1:17 off my PR. It's a tough course so I'm pleased. Maybe I'll write more on it later but now I'm off to Charlottesville to watch some bull riding!

Monday Night Footmall

Yesterday was a lovely day after a long cold winter. I was going to do a club 12K race mid-morning that runs on forest trails around a lake about thirty miles from my house but I got involved in projects and didn't go. Then I was going to do a long run, maybe a 16 or a 20-miler, but I didn't go out. I watched the day go by out a window.

Finally at 4 pm I decided to do a virtual 12K race to make up for the race I had not done earlier. It would be a very efficient "race" since there would be no transit or waiting around time. I went to the curb and set out.

I turned the first uphill mile in 8:18. It would have been faster but I passed by a penny and went back to retrieve it. A lucky penny, I hope.

I didn't know any more mile reference points til at 5 miles, I hit the W&OD Trail. At MP 8 on the trail, a mile from my house, I backtracked up a big hill to MP 8.5. Most satisfying, I passed one of those low-rider bicyclists on the hill.

"You need a lower gear," I said helpfully as I went by. He looked at me sharply. The tension on the trails between bikers and runners immediately came to the forefront.

"Actually I need a higher gear," he said. What the heck do I know?

Reversing course again at the half-mile marker, I ran back to MP 8, turning that mile in 8:48. I got home in 1:05:55, my 7.5 miles done at an 8:50 pace. Not exactly race pace, but good enough for a decent outing on a glorious afternoon.

Tonight after work I ran from Union Station to the Watergate where I met up with Sasha to run on the Mall. She calls this run Monday Night Footmall. We ran up behind the Capitol and back, nine miles for me in 1:26 (9:33). Sasha definitely was leading and I had to force myself to keep up, thinking I used to be faster than her. The darkness, uneven surfaces and hills were all bothering me.

Afterwards I jumped on a subway and rode to my stop. The car was too crowded for anyone to be able to move away from me in my sweaty clothes. Then I ran from the station to my house, a familiar mile even in the dark, in 7:25. That was a nice cap to my evening.

Poor Man's Marathon

I finished a marathon last Sunday in 3:33:30 (8:09 minutes per mile). Or in 3 years (41.8 days per mile). It all depends on how, or whether, you count it.

I first ran the Washington's Birthday Marathon in 2002 in 4:59:53 (11:27). It was my 3rd marathon and I had never broken 5 hours before. How big do you think my eyes got while I watched the seconds tick off the finisher's clock as I ran that last 100 yards? (Right: Last year I struggled running the anchor leg for the G-Force.)

This is a venerable race, a club marathon that runs through a rural nature research park in Greenbelt, MD. Three times. You go down this steep 3/4 mile hill to get into a forested bowl, run three 7.3-mile loops down there and finish by climbing the monster hill you ran down in the first mile in the last mile. After thinking about it for 25 miles.

This marathon is in its 47th consecutive year. It is known to be cold, windy and hilly. It is also dirt cheap, costing $25 (for which you get a technical shirt beforehand and a bowl of chili afterwards).

In 2006, L put together the G-Force to be a coed entry in the Relay part of the race. The three legs, being 9.7, 7.3 and 9.2 miles respectively, correspond to the three loops, obviously, with the first having a nice downhill and the last a nasty uphill. (Above: After the 2007 race with L and D.)

In 2006 I led off, L got the usual woman's leg and D anchored the effort. I ran my 9.7 miles in 1:17:23 (7:59), my first sub-eight effort ever at any distance over 10K. It was a breakthrough run for me. L ran her 7.3 miles in 1:01:55 (8:36) and D knocked off his 9.2 miles in 1:14:08 (8:03). We finished in 3:33:16 (8:08), 16th out 46 teams, or 6th out of 24 teams in our division. L picked up one spot for us after my 19th place effort, while D picked off two more teams. (Below: Volunteers at last year's race. This February marathon is often frigid.)

The next year D and I swapped positions. I didn't run very well. D put us in 15th place with a 1:18:35 (8:06), L knocked off two teams during her 1:00:49 (8:27) run and I went to pieces on the last big hill, losing one place while finishing in 1:17:32 (8:26). We finished fourth out of 12 teams in our division, in 15th place out of 29 teams with a 3:36:56 (8:17).

This year L dropped off the team and Sasha replaced her. I insisted on doing the short middle leg so I could "complete" the marathon by running all three legs in three years. D had to do the first leg since he wanted to do the full mary this year, so Sasha was given the hardest leg. She was imperturbable about it, shrugging off our warnings about "the hill." (Left: Despite suffering from an injury, D finished the marathon in under 4 hours, less than 12 minutes behind the team.)

D ran the marathon in 3:52:17 (8:52). Talk about consistency! He ran the first leg in 1:25:49 (8:51), passing off the red sash in 32nd place. Talk about guts! He was running with a stress fracture in his right foot, which has him sidelined indefinitely now after a visit with the doctor this week. (Above: Jessica and Ellen from the National Half Marathon training program, volunteering at this year's race. It's a long day for volunteers.)

I ran really well this year, doing a 58:35 (8:01) while trying to do sub-eights. Nobody passed me during the entire 7.3 miles and I picked up six places. Fresh, I ran by a lot of tired marathoners on their second loop. (Left: Finished with my poor man's marathon after three years!)

Then Sasha threw down a 1:16:35 (8:19), picking up a spot. We finished in 3:40:59 (8:26) in 25th place out of 43 teams, 17th out of 28 teams in the coed division. (Below: Sasha anchored the Gee Force this year.)

Marathon relays are a lot of fun.

All Things Must Pass

I was passed in a race a week ago.

What, you say? I've run over 200 races and I was never passed before?

Runners pass me in races all the time, of course. But last week's pass was something special, a personal milepost. (Right: I set a PR and got passed last week.)

You probably know I coach training groups. Currently I coach the Reebok Half-Marathon Program for the SunTrust National Marathon, coming up next month. Later this week I'll start coaching my club's 10K Training Program.

I have never had someone I coached beat me in a race. I coached the "fast" group in my club's 10-Mile Program in 2006. There was a group of young women athletes in that group that I had to push myself to stay ahead of each Saturday. H, who ran her first marathon in 4:07 (my first one was 5:05), M who ran her first 10-Miler in 1:19 (my first one was 1:29), and Sasha, who is currently a coach in the Program. At the end of our long runs, if one of them was still hanging with me half a mile out, I'd push and drop 'em off the back end.

At the target race, Army, I buried them all by uncorking a monster PR of 1:14. Nobody else in the group was under 1:20.

But since then I've watched them all keep progressing as I have slowed down. I focused on Sasha as the best of the bunch. Not by a lot, but quietly she usually beat them all. That's why I was so glad when she agreed to coach in the Program. She obviously has so much to give to others. (Above: Sasha on the right, with S on the left, before last Saturday's race where she turned out to be a giant-killer.)

The day after I returned from my vacation out west, I ran a club 12K (7.456 miles) race. It was a scheduled part of the Program. Sasha ran it as well. The women started five minutes after the men to alleviate congestion for bikers on the W&OD and Custis trails, where the race course was laid out. I finished ahead of Sasha. But I'd seen how she wasn't that far back at the turnaround.

When the results came out I saw that I had set a PR of 1:01:40 (8:16). Woo hoo! Then I checked the women's results. Sasha finished with a time of 1:01:02 (8:11), in the top twenty.

All things must pass. Congratulations, Sasha. (Right: Sasha running around the Capitol last Monday evening with S as part of the Program's weekly evening run, which she initiated. She exemplifies the dedication of volunteer coaches everywhere.)