7/19/08: Too Hot To Handle 15K

I blame myself. I believe that one of the keys to happiness is avoiding unnecessary frustrations and yet I ran Run On's Too Hot To Handle 15K this year anyway. It's the sixth time I've run this race (1997, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006 being the other years) so I guess I can't claim to have learned from experience and I guess I shouldn't count out doing it again next year. If I do, expect another bitchy post.

The main problem with this race is that it's huge (2500 runners, so I heard, although only 1700 or so show up in the results) and yet they still insist on holding it at Winfrey Point. I didn't even try to park at Winfrey Point; as I was approaching Garland Road coming south on Buckner Boulevard, it looked like traffic turning onto Garland Road was backed up to Poppy Lane. My prefered parking location already being full, I wound up parking at the Stone Tables.


Judging from various t-shirts and tank tops, many Team in Training initiates and running class newbies were running one of the races. They lined up much more appropriately than usual as I wasted much less time, and energy, dodging walkers in the early stages of the race than I'm accustomed to. In fact, they did better than a couple of experienced runners I noticed who didn't let the fact that they were walking alter where they lined up.

A personal note to the girl in the blue tank top - it's not a good idea to come to a complete stop ten seconds into the race because an iPod earbud has come unmoored, lest you inadvertently engage in inappropriate relations with the older gentleman running behind you.

Y'all still need to work on your water stop etiquette. Don't come to a complete stop as soon as someone hands you a cup of water - there's a better than even chance that someone's coming up behind you. Wait until you're clear of the station and move to the side and then you can walk or stop or lie under a tree and drink without impeding other runners.

By the time I got to the water stop near the four-mile mark, they had run out of cups and were encouraging people to reuse the cups that littered the ground. I passed but I was also irritated - it doesn't seem like it's too difficult to identify a cup-shortage problem before the race and to correct it by hauling ass to the nearest convenience store and buying more. Running stores get involved with races partially for the marketing opportunities but that strategy can backfire when people come away from the event thinking it was poorly run.


I eventually finished (1:40:ish, there was a good amount of walking after the first five miles), drank some liquids, and took off. As I cruised down Garland Road, I saw that departures from Winfrey Point were going much more smoothly than they had in the past. The Dallas Police were directing traffic from Emerald Isle to turn right onto Garland Road where they had two lanes blocked off. Of course you still had the random driver who insisted on getting left as quickly as possible so he could make a u-turn, but it was still a vast improvement over having a vast line of cars back up into Winfrey Point while one stylin' dude in a Chevy Behemoth waits for a break in traffic so he can turn left onto Garland Road.

07/12/08: Moonlight Chase Four Mile

The Moonlight Chase is a four-mile race in Eldridge, Iowa, that starts at 9:00pm on the second Saturday in July. The nine o’clock start has its good points and its bad points: on this particular second Saturday in July, running conditions were downright reasonable by the time the starting gun was fired. On the other hand, if you’re casual about details – and some of us are! – and you show up at 6:45ish thinking the race starts at 8:00 because you don’t want to be rushed while registering, stretching, and otherwise checking out the scene, the extra hour of waiting can be excruciatingly painful. It’s a nice race and town and all, but it doesn’t warrant that much checking out.

A manic young dude started talking to me before the race. Eventually I realized that he was partially scoping out the competition - which meant that he was wasting his time on me, given that he’s fourteen years younger and maybe five minutes or so faster over four miles. I don’t know how he actually did (although I’m guessing 26:53); he said he was shooting for 25 minutes but I got the feeling he was more concerned with placing than time. He also expressed concern that there might be more cheating in a night race – people slipping off course and back on later so as to run a shorter distance – but I don’t think it’s too likely. For one thing, the course is lined with spectators so it would be difficult to avoid being seen.

I ran 30:06 which was good enough to be slightly disappointing in that I would have liked to be seven seconds faster. The course was lined with luminaries (except for one stretch where they had tiki torches instead) as well as spectators and the race organizers considered that a major selling point but as a runner I don’t think I’m in a position to fully appreciate them. When I’m running hard, or at least attempting to run hard, I’m not as aware of my surroundings as I might otherwise be. I did look up and see the moon at one point ; it was maybe three-quarters full. I wondered if they timed the race to match a fuller phase of the moon or if they held it the second Saturday in July even if the new moon fell on that day. I guess my mind wanders more than my gaze does.

Iowans being the chatty people they are, I talked to a couple of people after the race – the usual how did you do, isn’t this weather whatever type stuff. One common element, mention sometimes in passing and sometimes with laserlike focus, was the Bix. “I’m training for the Bix.” “I’ve got to be ready for the Bix.” The Bix may be the most prestigious non-marathon road race in the Midwest; I don’t think there’s anything comparable in Dallas. The Turkey Trot is large but I don’t think it’s a must-do for many of the more competitive area runners; the Dallas Half Marathon would like to be that race and is closer than the Trot to getting there but I don’t think it has nearly the same cachet. The Bix is run over a bitch of a course in the middle of the summer and people are beside themselves eager to run it. It’s a real measuring stick of a race.

Maybe I should check this Bix thing out some time. I missed it by a week this year.

07/05/08: Independence Day 5K

The Dallas Running Club’s Independence Day 5K does not start at Winfrey Point. It starts at Sunset Bay which is just north of Winfrey Point and which I had read in the Dallas Morning News on Friday, only it didn’t register. I parked at Winfrey Point, I strolled up to the building at Winfrey Point, and despite the obvious lack of activity, I tried the handle of the door(to the building at Winfrey Point). It was locked.

I decided to check the parks building at Sunset Bay because, while there weren’t a lot of people around, there were a lot of cars parked at the bottom of the Winfrey Point hill and I did see a guy wearing a bib number jog by. As soon as I started off in that direction, I remembered that the paper said the race was at Sunset Bay so everything was cool. An added bonus about starting here was that an out-and-back 5K course wouldn’t reach to the shaky bridge.

After a mostly sleepless night, and after running and lifting vigorously the day before, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to approach this race. Before the start I saw a guy I recognized who I knew was slower than me, so I decided to pace off him for the first mile and then see if I could pick it up. The first mile felt too easy, which was how it was supposed to feel, and we ran it in 9:29, but the strategy paid off as I ran the next two miles in 7:49 and 7:43 before finishing with 45 seconds for the last tenth, giving me an overall time of 25:48, 8:19 pace. Which was tons better than last week’s 27:36 dedicated to keeping Austin weird, especially if you don’t factor in that it was closer to eighty at the start than it was to one hundred.

After the race I hung out for a while watching all the people I beat finish (the guy I paced off ran a 27:36 or so which means he picked it up also) while trying to figure out where to breakfast, and I checked out the posted results (which were messed up in places – they had no time for me and one age group where the second place finisher ran faster than the first place dude but slower than the guy in third place) while wondering where to breakfast, and finally I took off and got in my car, hoping it had some Insight on where I should breakfast. Turns out, it did. It beelined for Eatzi’s on Oak Lawn which isn’t very crowded at nine o’clock in the morning, and I got migas, which the only problem with their migas is that they overload you and I was only able to finish half of them, and breakfast sausage, which the only problem with their breakfast sausage is that it’s highly addictive and I know several people who have had to go into sausage rehab. Which if you have to have problems, those are okay problems to have.

06/28/08: Keep Austin Weird 5K

Three young women, barely old enough to legally suck down their Zeigenbocks, were robbed in broad twilight at the Keep Austin Weird 5K when their clever convict costumes, based on the chain-gang escapees from “O Brother, Where Art Thou”, went unrewarded and unrecognized despite the fact that they ran the race handcuffed together. It is a deep, dark disappointment that I didn’t get to see how they negotiated the water stops.

The costumes were all about keeping the weird in the Keep Austin Weird 5K; costumes that were recognized included a magician and his bunny, two girls sharing one canoe, beer keg guy, baa baa sheeple, and the All American Girls, whose main attractions were the pinwheels attached to their bosoms. Oh, and the guy whose costume made it look like he was riding on the back of an old lady; that one was pretty good actually but it was also distracting as I couldn’t help but try to deconstruct the illusion.

The race itself was the most forgettable part of the evening; the temperature was in the high nineties when I started and it was still in the high nineties when I finished. Starting the race at 6:00 on an early summer evening, they must be as intent on keeping Austin sweaty as they are in keeping Austin weird. I tried to start slow and I sort of succeeded – my time for the first mile wasn’t very fast but I expended a lot of energy working for a mediocre time. The race continued in that vein; I wound up finishing in 27:36 and was just glad to be done.

I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the food in the runner’s area after the race but that may have been due to the heat. I ate half a slice of pizza and picked at a small bowl of salad but I didn’t feel like eating. I also drank a bottle of warm fruit punch and one of cold water; liquids, particularly cold liquids, were much more appealing. I also picked up my race t-shirt; it was cool and came in an ecofriendly shopping bag.

After going off to change into dry clothes, I wandered into the main festival area where various food and drink, including beer, were available for purchase. The beer options were Bud and Bud Light in cans, Zeigenbock on tap, and Independence, a local brew, available in an unknown format because I never saw any. I went for Zeigenbock, which is Anheuser Busch’s attempt to compete with Shiner, and it was tasty and cold. I spilled a little, though, when the Checker Cab guy tossed me one of his promo discs and I had to sky to make the grab. Later I had two more beers and a couple of mini-cheeseburgers while rocking out to What Made Milwaukee Famous, watching the costume contest awards presentation, and folk-rocking out to Alejandro Escovedo.

The race and festival go a mostly thumbs up with one caveat: it’s pricey. I paid forty bucks at late registration; had I signed up in advance (before June 26th) it would have been $35. On an individual basis it may not seem like you’re getting your money’s worth but considering the venue (Auditorium Shores along Town Lake) and the entertainment, it doesn’t seem like they’re just pocketing the money, either. A free beer or two would be nice, though.

06/07/08: Bloomin' Four Mile

I think I need to find me some P.F. Flyers, the better to run faster and jump higher with; I know I need to find some friendlier weather but it's only June - it's going to get worse before it gets better. For the Dallas Running club's Bloomin' Four Mile race it was 79 degrees and 77% humidity which made for a heat index of about a jillion. Not that it would be any better, but I wonder if they've ever considered having one of their summer runs in the evening.

I had a plan - run the first two miles very conservatively and try to pick it up over the second half of the race - but several things went awry not the least of which was not following the plan very well. I ran the first two miles in about sixteen minutes, which would qualify as very conservative if the temperature was about twenty degrees cooler, but today it was a faster pace than I was expecting for the entire race. Which meant there was much walking and gnashing of teeth over the last two miles but at least there was more teeth-gnashing than there was walking. The second, and third (out-and-back course), miles traversed the dreaded shaky bridge which has been my main source of motion sickness for the past ten years. Maybe I should start taking Dramamine before running at White Rock Lake.

Actually after a long walking break in the third mile - longer than intended as I decided to walk to the mile marker and I was further away than I thought - I decided to forget about the race (except for staying on course and stopping at the finish line) and just run intervals for the last mile. I ran hard, like near-sprint hard, for 100 steps (counting one foot only) and then walked for 60 steps. I did three sets and then jogged the rest of the way in, finishing about 35:06. Which isn't an auspicious start to a new (birth) year but does mean I have lots of room for improvement.

I was expecting to run with some relay club members but I didn't see any of them at the race; there was a happy hour the night before that I guess wound up being happier than anticipated. I did see Grapevine Mike, who actually lives in Dallas County but who I know from running in Grapevine. I hung out with him some before the race and more after the race but not so much during the race as he finished well ahead of me.

While hanging out after the race I tried one of the many free Accelerades they had available. My flavor of choice was fruit punch and I should keep in mind that it was warm but I wasn't too impressed and I'm not in any hurry to fork over cash money to give it another try. For now my carbohydrate-and-protein drink of choice remains Nesquik although I'll pass on that, too, if it's served warm. I drank the dregs of the Accelerade after I got in my car and drove off in search of breakfast. You can tell the racing season's hit a lull when you get back to your car after a race and your windshield doesn't have a single brochure on it.

05/25/08: Mad City Half Marathon

Thirteen.1 Notes on the Mad City Half Marathon

1. The half marathon starts at 7:25 at the state Capitol building - fifteen minutes after the full marathon and twenty minutes before the quarter (and personally I think these subdivisions are getting silly) marathon - and finishes at the Alliant Energy Center maybe three miles away. So I had to get to the finish line a little after six to catch a shuttle to the start, which is why I'm not a big fan of point-to-point courses.

2. I hadn't planned a strategy for this race so when I saw the 1:50 pace guy lining up near me, I decided to stick with him for as long as I could. If I could hang for ten miles, I'd be happy no matter how crappy the last three miles were. Unless my death was literal rather than figurative, of course.

3. I ran this race two years ago in 2:xx:xx on a day when it was 79 degrees and 72% humidity. Today it was more like 63 degrees and 54% humidity, which is one of the reasons I came back. The other is that I like Madison; it's a cool city.

4. The race started promptly and it also started downhill, which is nice on a point-to-point course. It's a moderately hilly route although it does have two long, mostly flat sections: along Lake Mendota around miles six and seven and around Monona Bay and heading towards the back of the Alliant Energy Center, towards the finish. Although they do throw in one last nasty little uphill just before you turn into the parking lot.

5. I wouldn't say the crowd support rivals Boston but I was surprised by how many people were out cheering early in the morning.

6. The first part of the course goes northeast from the Capitol along the isthmus separating Lake Mendota from Lake Monona before turning around and returning to downtown via Johnson and Langdon Streets. So a lot of the downhill in mile one turns into uphill in mile four, I think.

7. The University of Wisconsin section of the course goes along the Temin Lakeshore Path and along some roads on the west side of campus, including past Camp Randall Stadium. Which is fine by me; if they took us through the main part of campus we'd wind up running some hills worth bitching about.

8. I don't remember much about miles eight through eleven but what I do remember is mostly bad - a short out-and-back around Vilas Park, which I hate out-and-backs and wish they'd find a way to eliminate it; running up a pedestrian bridge late in mile nine to get across North Shore Drive; and noticing about halfway through mile nine that I'd already sped up to my "God I want this to be over with!" pace, which isn't a good pace with 4.5 miles still to go.

9. I made it through mile eleven in 1:31:44 (8:20 pace) before cratering and losing contact with the 1:50 people.

10. The last two miles weren't totally horrible, just mostly so. There was some walking but I ran more than I walked.

11. I actually had a quick left after mile thirteen. I guess that was the payoff for dogging it those last two miles.

12. The medals for all the races just say "Mad City Marathon" and are color-coded by race (red for marathon, yellow for half, white for quarter); in addition, the name of the actual race run is printed on the (also color-coded) ribbon. Marathoners sometimes bitch when the shirt or medal doesn't distinguish between the various distances.

13. I grabbed a bottle of water at the finish line, but didn't bother food. I didn't even go all the way through the line - I didn't see anybody carting around anything that looked particularly appealing.

13.1 1:54:31.

05/15/08 & 05/17/08: Katy Trail 5K & Warbird 10K

I ran the Katy Trail 5K on Thursday evening in Dallas and the Warbird 10K on Saturday morning at the Warbird Brewing Company in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. I’ll probably run the Katy Trail 5K next year while I’m not too likely to come back and do this one but that’s only because I’ll probably lose track of the date, or not be able to get a flight, or to to try a different race elsewhere. It will have nothing to do with preferring the Katy Trail 5K over the Warbird 10K; in fact, I like both races and prefer the Warbird race to the Katy Trail one.

While neither race is particularly small, the Katy Trail 5K dwarfs the Warbird races (which include a 5K in addition to the 10K; both races start together) by about 4,000 or so to slightly less than 1,000. I count this as a point in the Warbird’s favor – I prefer races in the 500 to 1,000 range. They’re large enough that they’re probably going to have good support and a reasonable postrace scene but not so large that you spend as much energy weaving through the crowd as you do running the damn race.

Everything else being equal, the Katy Trail course blows away the Warbird course as it’s scenic, shaded, urbane. The Warbird course runs along some rural-for-now land south of the city along open roads that don’t offer much protection if the day is bright and windy. Which today was, with the sun coming out from behind some early morning rain clouds just as the race started. What isn’t equal, of course, is the number of times I’ve run either of these courses, what with this being the first time I’ve been in Ft. Wayne (hometown of Charlton Heston’s character in “Planet of the Apes”) as opposed to having run along Turtle Creek Boulevard and up and down the Katy Trail about a jillion times each. I like running both those places but I like running new places more as long as they don’t suck, and the Warbird course wasn’t that bad.

The Katy Trail people promote the postrace picnic as much as they do the race – they have tons of sponsors, most of them local restaurants (many of them high-end), provide food. One of the advantages of being at least still moderately fast is that I can be done with the race and down to the food before the lines have had a chance to build up. This year Strong’s Everyday Tavern provided bitching bar-be-que ribs; I also had pizza from Campisi’s and Rocco’s, baked ziti from Terilli’s, and pasta salad from Holy Ravioli, I’m pretty sure. The beer, which I didn’t bother with because I was still slightly hung over from Lazy Bones the night before, was Michelob Ultra. They’ve been the title sponsors for the past few years; the first year I had it I thought it was horrible but every time I’ve had it since, I’ve been pleasantly surprised that it didn’t suck as badly as I remember it from that first time. I guess I have to grudgingly concede that it’s mediocre.

The Warbird food was neither as elaborate nor as varied but I liked it better; their beer was more varied and I liked that better, too. They had small Kobe beef burgers, chili, and pasta salad – the burgers were awesome, the pasta good, and the chili avoided because of bean content. The beer options were a red ale, a yellow ale, and a dark amber something-or-other. I had a red and a dark amber; I preferred the amber to the red but they both beat the crap out of Michelob Ultra.

Neither race was particularly successful for me; I ran the 5K in 23:53 sandwiching a crappy second mile (8:20ish) around pretty good first (~7:15) and third (~7:30) miles. I finished 29 out of 78 in my age group, 283 out of 952 men and 369 out of 1738 among all timed finishers. I ran the 10K in 50:47 (50:59 officially, and I don’t know what caused the discrepancy) and can’t say for sure what my exact placements were – they had some problems with the (non-Champion) chip timing system they used, which was compounded by people signing up for the 10K and then running the 5K. In the preliminary official results, as posted on the side of the brewery, the winning 10K time was 20:20ish – which would be a new world record by about six minutes if it was somehow allowed to stand! The results on line, which look to be much more accurate, show me finishing 16 out of 36 in my age group, 95 out of 209 men, and 113 out of 323 overall.

Two races in three days – it’s almost like the old days of, say, 1997 (58 races). Except I think I was running a little bit faster back then. Of course, I was a lot younger, too.