Let's go for it !

I'd long planned to travel east to visit my wonderful and loving parents, who reside in a sprawling, well maintained retirement community in Lancaster, PA.  And as recently as three weeks prior, my training focus had been geared toward running a 5k road race conducted for the benefit of Hands on House, a children's museum nestled in the scenic Amish countryside just north of town.

Knowing that the terrain there would pose a challenge even before I completed the flat-as-a-pancake Glenview 5k, the next three weeks of training would incorporate hills and perhaps some longer runs.  So September 10 marked the first day of hill training.

But just try to find any safe-to-run hills around here that stretch along more than a quarter mile in length.  There are none that I know of.  So if you are going to get some meaningful outdoor hill work in around here, that means doing repeats.  Alot of them.

There's a beach on Lake Michigan a couple miles away that can be reached via an access road featuring a steep 20+% grade.  That's more than what would be faced out east.  But even though that incline lasts for less than 150 meters, it would have to do.

So I combined that with inclined treadmill workouts, plus runs through tall grass in a local park featuring some uneven terrain, plus a few nine mile tempo runs (on pavement and even a nearby beach).  My body was responding well as I commenced the hill work and bumped the mileage up a bit - so much so that I considered making a change with one week to go - a decision to register for the half marathon instead of the 5k at Hands on House.

It would be a breakthrough race.  I'd never run more than 4.5 miles on race day.  Plus no hills.  So some homework had to be done, then a gut check.  Several versions of the course had been posted to mapmyrun.  That site shows you elevation as well as the route itself.  Each version point to a total course gain exceeding 365 feet.  Three uphills exceed one continuous mile in length each.  And one of those sported an average incline of over 2.5%.  The steeper downhills would present their own challenge.  The mapmyrun site also allows you to take a flyover tour of the route using satellite imagery.  Plus a video tour of the half marathon route had been posted to youtube:

Clearly this is not your typical midwestern course.  But this race was going to be my last of the season - I was looking for something different - and with the training regimen leading up to race week had reason to be confident.  And a final check of the weather forecast - temps in the upper 50s and cloudy with perhaps some sprinkles and light winds - cemented the decision to go for it.  Upon mentioning this change to my wife she seemed at ease, simply suggesting that I "just walk the rest of the way if you can't run any longer."  One of my daughters - already a two time Boston Marathon qualifier by age 22 - did sound a note of caution however, suggesting that I treat this as a training race.  And upon touring the course via car a couple of days before the race, my dad became a bit nervous about my well being.

The sense was building that a conservative race plan was needed.  Being a numbers geek, I prepared a spreadsheet which would modify my target flat land pace to the terrain I'd face during each mile.  The output would be a split and cumulative time target for each mile mark of the race.  Using past performances, albiet at shorter distances, I applied something called the Purdy model - basically a formula used to estimate equivalent outcomes at varying distances based on one past race result - to extrapolate an average target time of 7:45 per mile based on flat terrain.  The spreadsheet then modified that time based on hills to arrive at a custom 7:57 mile split for the Hands on House course.  A series of sanity checks then completed the analysis.

Many athletes feed off of fan support - I'm one of those - and that was the final building block of the process.  I can't say enough how supportive my wife has been.  She's put up with my near obsession for endurance sports for the past year and a half and deserves someone who can strike a better balance in life than I have shown during that time.  Yet her presence at my triathlons inspired me to do my best and I owe alot to her - including my standing down at least for the offseason and perhaps longer to rebalance things.  But sadly she would not be present on this trip out east - a void which would be filled by my parents, sister (my only sibling) and brother in law.  My parents took care of several things - including my accommodations and even my prerace meal.  My sister and dad made sure I got to the event well beforehand.  And my brother in law figured out the best places to cheer me on along the course (it is not a fan friendly venue as it turns out).

So now all I had to do was show up for the race and execute to the race plan - easier said than done !

The "showing up" part consisted of a flight out of Milwaukee to Washington Reagan airport, then a road trip to a family gathering held by my aunt and uncle in Delaware, then a final drive to Lancaster - all the day before the race.  Race veterans say you should get in a light run the day before, and then look for ways to eliminate any stress.  Looking back, although my travel went smoothly I didn't appreciate how tired I would feel until I finally turned in for the evening.  And despited the wonderful accomodations I had trouble getting to sleep as a cricket serenaded me with its incessant chirp-chirp.  A couple of Benadryls finally did the trick for me.

I set two alarms for 6:30 the next morning - no brittany spaniel available this time around to provide a wakeup call . . .

. . . to be continued.