2012 Umstead Coalition 4 Miler

Canine showdown! Dudley Dooright on the left. Jeffery J. Jeffery on the right.

[The rest of Shannon's photos from the race are here.]

Yesterday Dooright and I challenged Shannon and Jeffery to a heads up race in the Umstead 4 Miler.
The betting odds were a toss up. Here are the profiles:

Everybody loves a 3 legged dog.

Jeffery J. Jeffery

People assume that since Jeffery is missing a back leg, he is somehow disabled, but this not the case. 
Out of our 4 dogs he is the fastest runner and is never tired, even after a long run. He is nothing but lean solid muscle, coiled like a spring.

Strengths: Raw speed. Endurance.
Weaknesses: Easily distracted, especially by food. Prone to badly timed bodily functions. Missing a leg.

He doesn't care where. He just wants to go.

Dudley Dooright

When he was younger I used to take Dooright running all the time. But he is now 7, which is old for an 85 pound dog. He is built more for pulling a sled in the frozen tundra than running in North Carolina.

Strengths: Laser like focus. Metronome pacing.
Weaknesses: Overheats very easily. Bad hips (hip dysplasia).

Who would be top dog?

Going For The Win
I had been debating all week about whether to run this race by myself, or take Dudley along.
If I took him, I was pretty sure he would run the first mile fast, then by mile 2 he would overheat and be collapsed in the bushes, panting uncontrollably.

If I ran it on my own, I could run it hard and use it as a fitness benchmark, comparing it to when I ran it in 2009 and 2011. And depending on who showed up, I could possibly win. (Crazier things have happened). First prize is a $100 gift card to Great Outdoor Provision Company.

But then I remembered reading Marty Gaal bragging on his blog about his dog Tassie winning the canine division of Umstead 4 Miler last year. "You wanna go for the win Dooright?" His tail thumped on the floor.

Pre race soaking.

A Plan
If Dooright was going to go for 4 miles without stopping to jump in the lake, I needed a plan to keep him cool:

1. Last week we shaved off most of his fur coat. Our friend Ken was impressed, "Did someone attack him with a kitchen knife?"
2. Before the race I soaked him with water. Dogs can't sweat. But the cooling power of evaporation still works for dogs, just like people.
3. I would bring with a 20 oz bottle of ice water to spray on him during the race.
4. Lastly, I had one secret, underhanded maneuver to ensure victory

We registered Dooright and Jeffery so they would have bibs.

Dooright, leaping into action

And They're Off!
When Dudley runs, he must be in front. And when the pack of kids took off sprinting, so did he.

Within a quarter mile we had passed everyone and were actually leading the race! I was already out of breath, and my Garmin showed a 5:00 min/mile pace. Once out in front Dooright relaxed a bit, and Jeff Hall pulled into the lead.

Jeff just ran a 3:08 in the Boston Marathon heat wave 5 days ago, but I couldn't keep up with him. And he is older than me. Unreal. I am adding him to the rival list.

The first mile, Jeffery hot on our tails

They had lots of awesome live music along the course. Dooright wasn't interested in slowing to appreciate it though, he wanted to catch Jeff.

Bongos!

Wind!

Brass!

Secret Plan
The first mile was all downhill which we did in an insane 5:43. This was a sprint for me, but Dudley was just trotting along. Still, I knew he wouldn't be able to keep it up.

It was time to implement the SECRET part of my winning plan. To keep Dooright in first place, I needed to slow the rest of the dogs down. I pulled out a small bag of dog food from my pocket and spread it all over the wooden bridge.

We both laughed like Muttley from The Really Rottens.

Iced Dog
We continued up cork screw, dodging bikers and runners. Every time Dudley started to slow, I gave him a squirt of the ice water, and each time he picked it back up.

Jeff was sill in sight. But we were unable to gain any ground on him. At mile 3, Dooright spotted Ready Creek lake to the left and tried to run down to it. A gave him last squirt from the bottle.

Do I smell dog food?!!

Behind us, Jeffery stopped on the bridge looking for the dog food I had dumped. My evil plan worked!

The last mile was uphill and I was spent. We still managed to do a 6:37, but neither of us had anything left to catch Jeff.

Finish
We rolled into the finish as first dog and second overall in 25:06, a 6:17 mile. This seems crazy on the hilly course, and was better than I had hoped, even running it alone. Maybe Dudley actually helped me by pulling me along!

The 3 legger Jeffery was second place dog
-photo by Scott Lynch

Jeffery came in a few minutes later as second. Unfortunately they will not show up in the official results as we had hoped. Maybe we can ask them to have an official dog division for next year.

We had a great time. Thanks Umstead Coalition and Carolina Godiva volunteers!

2012 Hard Climb Hill

Note: This report is a little late, due to the fact I have spent most of the last 6 days trying (and failing) to correctly adjust the front derailleur on my bicycle.

The last of the Godiva Winter Series races, Hard Climb hill was held on a warm and foggy morning in Duke Forest.

Scott (above) has a much better race report, so please see that for further details. Instead I'll just give a recount of how my race went.

I de-laced the forefoot and made a few cuts to convert them to extra wide width.

This was the first race I have run in the Merrell Trail Gloves, and I was very nervous.
From running the race in previous years, I remembered my feet hurting from all the gravel. And that happened while I was wearing thick cushy shoes!

My Glove running so far has been exclusively on the foot friendly Lake Crabtree Trail. So the day before the race, as I test, I ran a mile on a gravel road. It was slow and painful, and I could feel every rock.
My commitment to minimalism wavered, and I briefly thought about breaking out the cushy shoes again for the race.

But I was starting over, and "slow and painful" seemed a good place to begin. So I left the chushies at home.

I positioned myself in the middle of the pack, and started of at a moderate pace down the gravel road.
At first I tried dancing around the gravel, and then tried just taking tiny little steps. But it felt really awkward. As we descended the first hill, I was shuffling to slow myself down.

I remembered Barefoot Josh's strategy for dealing with gravel: "Just go for it".
So I did, and just let myself fly down the hill.

Weirdly, the gravel did not hurt at all.
Obviously, the faster you move your feet, the less impact is on each step.
But there is something else to it, too. Maybe by running "normally" my legs are more relaxed.

Anyway, my legs and feet felt pretty good, and I was moving at a pace I haven't achieved since... let me check the running log... the 5K on the runway 10 months ago.

Way up ahead of me, I could see Bart and Jeff who had taken off like a shot.
I decided my goal would be to catch them. I figured that it may be possible since they were doing the 10 miler and I was only doing the 3.

So I just gunned it going up the "Hard Climb Hill", slowly reeling them in. I was redlining it like it was 100 meter sprint, but I knew I didn't have to save anything for later.

We hit the 1.5 mile turn around and I was completely gassed, still 50 meters behind them. Their 10 mile pace was faster than I could go a mile, and I was about to give up.

Coming down the hill I got a high five from young-gun-running-super-star Ryan, and that lifted my spirits.
I pushed all-out the last mile, huffing, puffing, grunting, and groaning and managed to just edge Bart right at the 3 mile mark, and I was done. Bart and Jeff continued on, finishing the hilly 10 mile course in under a 7 minute pace.

It was a great confidence boost to be able to keep up with them, if only for 3 miles. And I was very happy that my legs felt good, for the first time in a while.

I waited around waiting for Shannon, who ran the 10 miler at her ultra pace. This Saturday she is running the Umstead 100 miler.

More to come on that...

2012 Eno Equalizer

Handicapped start

Yesterday was the Carolina Godiva Track Club Eno Equalizer, the 5th race in the Winter Series.
This race is a team event, with a fairly simple premise: The team who has all 3 members cross the finish first wins. In other words, your team finishing time is when the 3rd team member finishes..

To make it more fair, each runner is given a head start, or "handicap" according to their abilities. This is the "Equalizer" part. To add an element of strategy, this time handicap can be traded among team members to help balance the times.

Professor Richard Smith, Race Director, tries desperately to explain the rules

Unfortunately, this is more complexity than most runners can grasp early on a Sunday morning, and there was some confusion on the faces of the 58 runners gathered there.

Almost no one plummeted to their death off the side of the swinging bridge

The race is about 3.7 miles, on the Cox Mountain trail in Eno River State Park.
Originally, I scoffed at the idea of something so small being a "mountain", but that was before I tried to run up it. Then I was regretting not bringing any climbing gear.

The lower elevations of Cox Mountain,
before you get to the glacier.

My team failed to get a single person across the line before the winning time of 23:21. I think we really got screwed on the handicaps.

Shannon took lots of photos which are here. Because of a high mileage week, she ended up DFL, with the timing folks wondering where she was. All captured in this video here.

Maybe the only race you will run where you pass
a sign saying "no running"

With 2 hard trail races in two days my legs were beaten to a pulp, and I desperately needed a rest.

So we immediately headed over to a nearby section of Mountains to Sea trail and ran another 8 miles.

Surprisingly, my legs don't hurt too bad today... as long as keep them perfectly still.

2011 CDTR 10K Race Report

Lots of fast guys up front. Who would win? None of them.

The incredible legs of Joyce Hodges-Hite.
 Yes, that's her age.

Charity Race
The Continental Divide Trail 10K is held on a brutally technical course in Laurel Springs, NC. The name refers to the Eastern Continental Divide in case you're wondering. This tiny race attracts big talent because it serves as the USATF National 10K Trail Championship.

For those not familiar, USATF is a charity program where mediocre runners like myself donate $30 each to help disadvantaged runners who are burdened with unnatural speed. On the men's side, the needy runners at the race included trail prodigy David Roche, mountain goat Ryan Woods, La Sportiva Mountain Cup winner Jared Scott, and Olympic hopeful Bobby Mack.

But the most incredible athlete present was easily Joyce Hodges-Hite, returning for her third year in a row. She ran the same course that left elite athletes stumbling and gasping for air. She is 74 years old. The next time I complain about some knee pain, just say "Joyce Hodges-Hite" and I'll shut up.

New to the race this year was a truck doling out free post race smoothies. More on that later.

Race co-director Jason Bryant gets
 upset with incompetent photographers

Race Day Jitters
The men's race came first, and as I lined up at the start, I was nervous.
Mostly about what I had to do after I was done running. Shannon had volunteered us to be the "official" race photographers, and I was on the hook for capturing the women's event.
I had practiced using Shannon's Canon 5D Mark II during the week, and had discovered that I had no idea what I was doing.
The camera is really complicated and gives you 1000 different options for producing dark and blurry pictures.

Race directors Jason and Alison Bryant had comped our race fee, so I did not want to disappoint.

First I had to get through the race without hurting myself too much, which would be a challenge. My runners knee rehab was still incomplete, and I had run a grand total of 60 miles in the previous 3 months. Most of it very slow and painful.


Competitive Plummeting
Fortunately for me, the race actually did not involve much running.
Here is the breakdown:

• Running : 20%
• Trudging/climbing up steep slopes: 40%
• Plummeting out of control: 40%

The race began at the top of a grassy hill. At the word "go", I was swept up with the pack as we flew across the field and descended down a gravel path. I had not run a 6 minute mile in many months and my legs were not ready for it.

My right hamstring was screaming at me, "What the hell are you doing?". After a quarter mile, in an effort to protect itself, it curled up like a retracting tape measure. I tried to adjust my stride, but then my arthritic knees began to buckle. Suddenly it became impossible to control my descent down the path. 

The grade became more and more severe and I was literary falling down the hill, unable to stop myself. I was passing guys right and left, trying not to crash into them. Later, I would receive complements about my impressive downhill running ability, and I failed to confess that it was completely involuntary.

My contribution to the team was my incredible skill of dropping like a rock.

Competitive Trudging

Shannon captures my good running form

Finally I hit the road at the bottom of the 300 foot drop and managed to remain on my feet. The course immediately does a U-turn and heads straight back up. This was a huge relief to my legs, as I shifted to a nice slow power hike. The guys in front of me were actually running up the slope, but strangely I was able to keep up with them. 

By the top, I was warmed up and my legs felt better. Which was good, because next we hit the single track and some more semi-controlled falling down a 400 foot drop in a quarter mile.

On the next climb, I was hunched over with my hands on my knees for a good quarter mile. It seemed like it helped, and I thought about finishing the race like that.

Hitting the Wall
The race continued up and down a few more times, all the while I was expecting to completely tank. It didn't really know how far my legs would carry me, or how to pace myself, so I was just going all out. "You are going to regret this later", entered my head. But it felt so great to be racing again, I decided to just enjoy the moment.

In 2010, showing her my "O" face

I had been following teammate Craig Heinly for the last half of the race, just trying to keep up with him. As we made the final climb up "The Rock Wall", I think we were both delirious from exhaustion. Craig went right, and I stopped and stared at the orange flags on the left for few seconds, trying to comprehend what they meant.

"I think it's this way". I turned left and ended up ahead of him. Next I saw Shannon taking photos at the top of the rock wall and made a deliberate effort not make the maniacal primal scream face I did last year at the same spot.

Improbable Finish
I stumbled my way out of the trail and up to the finish. I stopped my watch, and the time was 51:43.
"What?" This was over a minute faster than last year, when I was running 200 miles a month instead of 20.

But, of course, you really don't need much training to drop down a hill out of control.

Smoothie
I saw someone with a smoothie and it looked wonderful. I was hot, hungry and thirsty.
"Where did you get that?"
"They are handing them out down there."
I started to head down to get one, when Shannon appeared. "Quick, take the camera! My race starts in 5 minutes". I helped her pin her bib on, and went over to capture women's start.

I was happy that my legs still functioned, as I was able to run to a few different spots to get shots. All the while still thinking of that smoothie. After 45 minutes I went headed back down to "The Rock Wall" to get the leaders coming up.

Nooooooooo!
I had managed to run the race without tripping, but here, with the camera, is where I fell. It was a slow motion crash, with my knees, then elbows, then face hitting the dirt. But when I came to a stop, the ludicrously expensive camera remained perched in my hand an inch off the ground.

I sat on the rocks for an hour and tried to get a shot of each of the women. Out of 800 pictures I ended up with 8 good ones, including the one above. [ see here for links to all the photos ]. Finally I had to leave without getting the last 3 women, because I was starving and lure of the smoothie was too great.

I headed down to the Sheets truck, and as I walked up, the woman inside waved her hand at me. "Sorry! That was the last one!" And slammed the window shut in my face.

I was too stunned and exhausted to complain, and instead collapsed into a heap on the ground.

"Do you want mine?", asked my teammate Barbara, who had received the last one. She graciously gave it to me. And thus my day was finally complete, and it had exceeded all expectations.

Godiva women's team took 2nd place Open and 1st place Master's.

Shannon
Shannon also had a very good day, taking an astounding 6:30 off her time from last year. Though she was a little disappointed that she had got passed at the very end, dropping her from 10th to 11th place.

As they handed out the medals for the women's race, they called up 10th place, then 9th, then 8th...
"Oh! If I just could have ran a little harder at the end, I could have been in the top 10!", she winced.

But then, in the middle of calling out the awards, Molly Nunn, the USATF representative, said "Wait, there seems to be some discrepancy." After a few minutes of consulting and reviewing the results, they made a change. It seems one of the top 10 was not registered USATF.

"In 10th place is Shannon Johnstone!"

That's right! Shannon placed in the top ten in a national trail race (*among those USATF registered). How cool is that?

Back at school she bragged to her students, who were not so easily impressed:
"Tenth?"

2011 Godiva Banquet

Last Saturday was the annual Carolina Godiva Track Club (CGTC) awards banquet. Shannon and I would not want to miss it because it is a great party and a lot of our friends would be there.

But we had no idea what was in store for us this year.

Pictures here are from Bart Bechard and Shannon. More pictures here and here.

Dinner was a wonderful buffet of Greek food from Spartacus

When we got there, I helped set up a slide show of pictures that Shannon had taken during the year.

Blue Ridge Relay team, Continental Divide Trail Race team, Umstead Marathon, Umstead Coalition run, and 5 Winter series races from the past year. That's a whole lot of Godiva.

The best part is the hobnobbing, meeting new people and catching up with friends.
A few people said they liked my blog but found me very dull in person.

This year, Godiva hired a male model to help attract more female membership

The ever witty Kevin once again served as emcee

Summer Track Awards
For those not familiar with Godiva, they organize a weekly track "meet" at the UNC track in the summer. It goes for 13 weeks, and each meet has 5 events. The events are open to all, and they are timed. It is pretty laid back and informal as everyone records their own time on the honor system. There is no need to be a member and you are only asked to donate a $1 to the Gatorade fund.

Click here for details if you are interested in attending. First meet is tomorrow!

At the banquet, runners in each age group are recognized for winning the most events.
The "Iron Man" awards are awarded to runners who participate in 75% of all track events throughout the summer. Running all of the events is called a "full Kirby" and is considered more than a little nuts.

Charles hands out the always creative summer track "Iron Man" awards

Tom and Barbara take home one of the snake headed bottle opener awards

for performing the incredible "Full Kirby

Winter Series Shirts
Godiva puts on 7 races in during the winter, called the "winter series". These are full fledged races with bibs and timing, but only cost $5 each. Each race has its own creative spin like age & gender based handicapped head starts, team scoring, and running through cow manure.

In order to complete the series you must run in or volunteer for 5 of the 7 races. If you do this, then you earn the custom designed winter series t-shirt. This year they were once again designed by member Susan Slade.

Jim performs the annual "tossing of the t-shirts"

Runners of the Year Award
Each year Godiva names a male and female "Runner of the Year", which are announced at the banquet.

The previous two years when the winners were introduced, they first read off the impressive and extensive list of their accomplishments: 1st place in this marathon, 1st place in that ultra. Set course records. Won too many 5Ks to count. Ran a 2:40 in Boston, etc.

This year, Bubbles was brought up to do the announcement: "The 2010 male and female runners of the year are a couple. They run the unofficial Cary shelter for unwanted animals, have a blog..."

Shannon and I looked at each other, stunned. Oh, no. It's us.

I was so nervous that I don't remember a single thing I said.
Hopefully it wasn't just a stream of incoherent cursing

Shannon and I are far from the caliber of previous recipients. I am not a threat to win any races (though Shannon is), let alone set course records. I guess if the committee was going by sheer quantity of races, we may excel in that category.

While we are humbled and honored for this recognition, we are also embarrassed by the amount of things that Godiva has done for us. All we did was show up to races and run. If anything, we should be the ones giving an award to Godiva.

Just in the past year:

• We got to be part of a Godiva sponsored Blue Ridge Relay team, where we had a fun and unforgettable experience.
• We were honored to be part of the Godiva teams that placed at the National Trail 10K championships.
• Ran in Umstead Marathon, Umstead Coalition run, and 5 winter series races. All organized and run by Godiva volunteers. 

For those readers who are not CGTC members, let me tell you that this club really is something special.

The current "running boom" taking place seems to be a commercially driven one. The running "community" is mostly people trying to sell you something: for-profit mega-marathons, companies pushing their running shoes, arm warmers, and energy gels, personal trainers, massage therapists, etc. Even some running clubs exist only as shoe store advertising.

In contrast, Godiva is just a group of people who love running. Not just for themselves, but they genuinely want to see others enjoy it and succeed at it. No profit motives. No ego trips.

Godiva is a collection of the most generous and friendly people I have ever met, and Shannon and I are just lucky to know them.

Volunteer of the Year Award
More important than Runners of the Year, is the Volunteer of the Year Award, because the club really only exists because of volunteers. For 2010, it was awarded to Bubbles (aka Mickey) for her really outstanding work as the newsletter editor, Lady Godiva columnist, Yvonne impersonator and haiku generating machine.

Bubbles accepts the 2010 Volunteer of the year award

Thanks to VP Halle Amick for organizing the event,
and of course, big thanks to Jim and Carolyn for hosting

Thank You, Godiva!

2011 Umstead Coalition 4 Miler

2011 Umstead Coalition Walk/Run/Bike

Shannon took some good pictures. Click here to see all of them