Thursday, November 13, 2014

What's Next?

I don't know what's next, but I feel so much more like myself now that I am actually running long distances again. I don't know how I let that year go by; I really don't. Anyway, I am thinking about my race schedule for next year. I seriously want to get this 50 States thing done. I started in 2005 and I think I can finish in 2019 or 2020, realistically. I mean I could finish sooner if I had unlimited money and vacation time, but, sadly, I do not. So here are the races I want to do next year, and if anyone wants to join me for any of them, please do!

Nashville Country Music Marathon in April. Maybe it is a little bit overly optimistic of me to think I will actually train over the winter to be ready for an April marathon, but I am going to try for it. One of the few states with a marathon I am excited about running. (I also want to do Oklahoma City in April, but not quite as much as I want to do Nashville, so I will put OK City off till next April.)

Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon in South Dakota, June 1. I've never even been to South Dakota, always wanted to go, and I'm just tired of waiting.

Hatfield-McCoy is June 13, so just two weeks after Deadwood. On the one hand, that would be crazy. On the other hand, I did Marshall U two weeks after Indianapolis and had a good run, and wasn't too sore. So it is a possibility. (By the way, the Hatfield-McCoy course runs through both West Virginia and Kentucky. 50 States rules say that when a marathon is like that, you can count it for either state you want. Of course I would count it for Kentucky since I already have West Virginia, which means I wouldn't ever do the Kentucky Derby Marathon, which is kind of a bummer, but… oh well.)

And last, I am planning to attempt another set of back-to-back marathons, Hartford/Newport, R.I., in October. I vaguely remember the total suckiness of the last back-to-back marathons I did, but am going to try it again anyway. It's been long enough since New Hampshire-Maine that the details of how much it sucked have kind of faded away, and I'm not going to go back and read my blog entries to remind myself. That would just be dumb.

Here is some news that is a bit of a bummer. I went to fill in my states on a marathon map, and found out I actually only have 22, when I have been claiming 23 all this time. I didn't really think it was possible to lose count, but I did. My total marathon count is 29. Why didn't someone stop me from running extra marathons in California and Arizona? (Not Colorado. Pikes Peak deserved to be run twice. It deserves to be run every year but I will not attempt it again until I live somewhere where I can get above 1000' elevation.)

That is about all the running news from here. Other than the fact that I am considering squeezing in one more this year, the Rehoboth Beach Marathon in Delaware December 6. When I was inside the stadium after the Marshall U Marathon, I ran into this girl I know casually from the Rochester running club. I had no idea she would be there since I haven't spent any time with the running group at all this whole year. She's a 50 States person too and had just qualified for Boston for the first time and was very excited about it. She also said she was doing Rehoboth Beach. That put it on my radar. It's expensive, probably cold, not my favorite kind of course, but still, it would be nice to actually be at 23 states by the end of this year if I can swing it. We will see.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

I Like Two-Loop Courses, Surprise! Marshall University Marathon Race Report

Let me be honest about something. I had written the first line of this race report in my head before I even got to Huntington, and it went like this in its original form: "This was the fourth in a row of mediocre small-town marathons -- nice for the community, logistically adequate, but totally lacking in any excitement for me as a runner." Then I actually did the marathon, and, wow! It is a really nice little marathon in every way.

I signed up for this race at the last possible minute, since I still wasn't sure whether there would be lingering effects from the Indianapolis Marathon two weeks ago. By last weekend I felt okay, so I went ahead and signed up, but not with very high expectations. The race reviews were generally good, but then again they almost always are, because (my theory) most people who write reviews pick their races based on the type of course they like, and they know the type of course the race is from reading previous reviews, so they are almost predisposed to like the races they enter. I, on the other hand, pick my races based on what's available at the last minute, how much money I can spend on travel, and which states I haven't done yet. So sometimes I end up in races that are not my type. I was pretty sure this would be one too.

I have to also say that I have never really liked West Virginia. (Sorry, Joan, I'm sure where you live is beautiful, but I've never been to that part.) I've been to four or five different places in West Virginia, and aside from the tourist part of Harpers Ferry, I have never found any part of it that didn't look exactly like what people outside the rural south thinks the rural south looks like. To me, West Virginia is one of those places, like the U.S./Mexico border, where stuff looks different the second you drive over a state line. Fences are rusty and sagging, sidewalks and streets are full of holes, porches have sofas on them and yard dogs are mean and the rednecks look like the dangerous kind. Huntington is kind of in the corner of West Virginia where it meets Ohio and Kentucky, and it didn't look any better than any other part of West Virginia I'd ever seen on the first pass. I was surprised by how big Marshall University was -- it looked like a real academic institution, which in my mind did not belong in West Virginia at all. Oh well, I was there to check off a state and not to look for a place to live.

It was cold, really cold, the night before, in the 30's with an icy cold wind blowing. Forecast was for sun on race day, but cold temps, low of 29. Luckily the forecast was wrong and it was 38 at the start line. There was plenty of free parking at the start, and we had access to the bathrooms inside the stadium, which was a total plus because they were heated. That is a serious luxury at a marathon start line. (Although it did mean I couldn't employ my usual technique for choosing a Portajohn line, which is to choose, not the shortest line, but the one where the last person in line is the most attractive guy who appears to be there by himself. Worst case scenario, you have a good view while you're standing there waiting; best case, you make a new friend!) The race started exactly at 7 (and let me say, it was nice having that extra hour this morning; the sun was actually up at race start).

This course was kind of like a figure 8 that the marathon loops twice. Well, kind of like a figure 8 except that the first part of the 8 was about 2.5 miles and the second part was 10.5. So, a grossly out-of-proportion figure 8. I had never done a double loop course and assumed I would not like it. I totally liked it, and wish all my other marathons could be double loops. The first part of the loop was strip malls and crappy houses close to the U. Huntington's roads are just like Michigan's, so watch your step. Once we passed the stadium again, we ran down to and through a park on the Ohio River. That part was very pretty, but then we got spit out into a 3-mile stretch of ugly industrial buildings. At least it was slightly downhill, although very slightly. The marathon is accurately advertised as flat -- amazing, considering the hills that surround it on every side. After that 3-mile stretch, we ran through "Central City" (which I am assuming is like Old Town Huntington) and then into another park. We were in this park, Ritter Park, for about 3 miles. The footing through the park was crushed limestone -- very compacted and such a relief for my feet! The park was pretty, with the path running right alongside a little creek (really more of a ditch) along the base of a really steep, wild hill, but it sort of had a scary, isolated feeling to it, like it would be the place where a local would dump a body. I wasn't worried about any body dumping today, though; there were too many people.

Once out of that park, we ran back up to Marshall U, with the slight uphill more than outweighed by a nice tailwind, and split off from the half-marathoners to run through the center of campus. It is a really pretty campus and actually reminded me a little of U of A, just because it was so pretty. The beauty took my mind off the fact that the half-marathoners were done while we were all going back for round two.

I had been feeling pretty good this whole time. My feet felt springy and nothing was hurting and the temperature was just right and I wasn't swallowing too much air this time. I figured the good feeling wouldn't last forever so I would just enjoy it as long as I could, but, surprise, it pretty much did end up lasting forever. I think that knowing exactly what was coming up helped a lot. None of the stretches were that long, so I knew I would feel like I was making good progress, unlike that horrible 6-mile out-and-back at Indianapolis. I did start to feel some blisters around Mile 21, but made up my mind to ignore them. I was wearing heavy winter socks and knew they were probably just bunched up and rubbing in the wrong places and would soon be rubbing again if I stopped and adjusted them, so I decided I would just let them rub.

I should have pushed harder to finish under 4 hours, but I just didn't feel like it, and got lazy in the last mile. I was thinking I was going to be about a half hour better than last marathon, and that was good enough and the actual number didn't matter. I did run the last half mile at a decent pace. The coolest thing about this race was probably the finish. As we ran into the stadium, volunteers handed us a football 100 yards from the finish, and we got to finish with a touchdown. That was admittedly cheesy, but also pretty cool. Ann Arbor's marathon finished in the stadium but there was definitely no football involved.

I felt fine afterwards. There was pretty amazing finish line food, chocolate milk and grilled hamburgers and hot dogs in addition to all the usual post-race food. I'm really not sore at all, except for some really random armpit chafing, which I have never had before. I guess it was the absence of hills or maybe I just had a good day. Maybe the secret of marathon training is to run them a couple times a month with only minimal exercise in between? Or possibly extended binging on Halloween candy? I don't know, but whatever the case, I highly recommend Marshall U. Marathon for any 50 Staters who haven't done West Virginia yet.