Grab a beer, coffee, tea, or coke, and some popcorn........

This is one week after my Oak Barrel HM which was my goal race. And since OB was my goal, I thought this weekend of a 32.6 mile challenge would be fun. Well, my Oak Barrel was a bust, so I secretly had some ambition that my training cycle would still give me a strong race, especially for part 2 of this report. This is week 11, after following the Ryan Hall 10 week plan.

Part 1; Heel and Crank Duathlon, 18.5 miles

First, was Heel and Crank Duathlon on Saturday the 12th, which consisted of a 3 mile run/13.5 mile bike ride/3 mile run. This was my first time to do an event like this, and I’ll have to say, that it creates another discipline of training that you should train for (which I didn't do properly). I bought a new bike a couple of months ago, and decided to get a hybrid. This was a good choice for most casual riding with my wife, but not so much for racing on the road; I’ll mention more on this later. I looked up last year’s results and formulated a “goal”, for which I didn’t have a damn clue about, but 1:45 sounded good. I didn’t ride as much as I wanted to, or should have, leading into this because of the Oak Barrel focus. I did a 2.25 mile warm up run prior to the event starting.

The first 3 mile run was an out and back on a wildlife refuge dirt road with maybe 4 blocks of pavement at the start, and then again at the finish. It was mostly clean and hard packed dirt, but had a few spots of gravel, some twigs, some camber, a few mud holes, and a few pot holes. There was plenty of shade, and one aid station at the turnaround. When we first hit the dirt road, it was a little tricky; you couldn’t get too close to the person in front of you, because you might step in a hole, or even land on a small rock. I finished this first leg in 23:16 for a 7:46 pace. Here is a pic of the trail; I’m in the green shirt.

I grabbed a cup of water as I entered the transition area, my time here for T1 was 1:48. I wore a pair of compression shorts, with running shorts over the top. At my bike, I had a gear bag, I yanked my running shorts off, put on a pair of padded biking shorts, fastened my helmet, put the sunglasses on. Then I walked my bike out of the transition area to the “mount” line.

My 13.5 mile bike ride was finished in 52:22 for a 15.5 mph average. For comparison purposes, the overall winner’s bike ride was 34 minutes for 23 mph! This was a beautiful ride out on country roads with little to no traffic and had a few rollers. I had a water bottle on my bike and drank almost all of the 20 oz. during the ride. There must have been 30 or more people that passed me while on the bike; I passed a few that were riding these “fat tire” bikes. There was a special class for this too, claims that it matches Huffy against Huffy. I say BS! It was kind of funny, I was pedaling my little ass off, and these folks were passing me like I was sitting still, and they were doing it with very little effort. I was almost to mile 4, and the leaders were heading back at their mile 11. I had a good ride, enjoyed the views, pushed a little and was trying to save some energy for the next day’s HM. Got a couple of nice pics as I was coming back into the transition area.

My time for transition 2(T2) was 1:34. I’m not sure how I was able to do this 14 seconds quicker than the 1^st time, but I did just the opposite of T1. I removed the helmet, removed my biking shorts, put on running shorts, racked my bike, and headed out for run #2. I grabbed a cup of Gatorade on the way out of the transition area. This was the exact same out and back course as run #1.

My legs felt like effing soupy mashed potatoes that were 10 times as big, and a million times heavier than they were just about 70 minutes earlier. I could barely keep them turning over. I managed to keep trudging along, thinking, damn this sucks, and tomorrow’s HM will be worse than the previous week’s Oak Barrel. I finished this run in 28:41 for a 9:34 pace. Here is a pic of me crossing the finish line, and , boy ole boy, was I glad to be done! See the Team TJ bracelet?

Summary, my overall time was 1:47:39. I finished 143/183 in all males, and 7/9 in the “fat tire” class. I will probably make this a yearly event, but will either buy, borrow, or rent a road bike for next year. My ass was really sore later that night and into the next morning. It was a deep pain; kind of felt like the bone was bruised. These tri guys and gals are great people, just like straight runners are. They were all shouting out to me, “good job” as they passed me, and that made me feel good on my bike that was outclassed. The best and most amazing part about this event, was the post race party and awards ceremony. They had pancakes with strawberries, bananas, blueberries, whipped crème, and BEER!

There was a big group of people that asked me to take their picture with a couple of their phones, look what the real camera guy did, lol!

Part 2; Bridge Street Centre Half Marathon, 13.1 miles

Remember the Oak Barrel RR from last week? A time of 2:20, numb foot, cramping, lots of walking, yet had a quick recovery. I am hoping that I have some good legs, since I didn’t trash them. The only thing is now I wonder what the 18.5 miles of Heel and Crank did to me. I had some loose goals going into this half. I definitely wanted to better the Oak Barrel time, but I also wanted to get less than 2 hours. They had pacers with various times, but for me, I focused on three of them.

This was the first year for the event, and I’ll have to say, that the owners of our Fleet Feet store, that were the race directors, done an awesome job. The race started and finished in a fast growing shopping district, in an outdoor type “mall”. We run a big loop away from the stores and there was a short section or two that were run twice as part of the route back. The course was mostly flat with a few rollers, but nothing major. Temp was 57 degrees at the 7:00 am start time, and 70 degrees predicted at 9:00 am.

I planned to start with the 2:00 pace group, and pick it up if I felt okay near the half way point, but when we all bunched together right before the start, I found myself closer to the 1:55 pacers. I did a 1 mile warm up, and thought what the heck, my legs had loosened up from the day before, and so I would just stay with them for a couple miles to see how I developed. I also wanted to make sure my numb foot thing didn’t bite me again. The first five miles splits went like this, 8:45, 8:43, 8:42, 8:35, and 8:38. Did I mention it was hot? I was already dreading the rest of the run but felt rather good for this pic. I grabbed some water at the first aid station.

The next 4 miles were strong too, but near the end of mile 9, my legs started feeling like the soupy mashed potatoes again. The splits were 8:36, 8:44, 9:14, and 9:22. I took some Gatorade at the next aid station, then a GU and water at the third one. It’s still hot, and getting hotter, lots of the men were running with their shirt off. Gotta have a GU pic with the end in your mouth.

As I approached the 9.5-9.75 mark, I noticed one of my lady friends walking along side of a man and she was holding his arm. When she recognized me, she told me he was about to pass out and wasn’t going to make it. I am a First Responder at work, and my training kind of kicked in. I already was fading from the 28 or so miles that I’ve done in the last 24 hours, so I pulled up and took his other arm. We walked him about ¼ miles to the next corner where there were police and volunteers. He said his quads were seized up with cramps; he was walking very stiff legged. I asked a lot of questions about his hydration and fueling prior to the race. Did I mention it was hot? I was mostly trying to keep his mind distracted, he wanted to sit down, but I knew that would be a bad choice, so we kept him walking. When we reached the police, they immediately called for an ambulance, and we went on our way. The split for mile 10 was 11:14. I don’t know this guy, nor did my lady friend, so I don’t know the turnout, but I really suspect he was severely dehydrated and suffering from heat exhaustion. Hopefully it was nothing more than some IV fluids and then they released him. In my 5-6 years of running and racing, this makes the third person that I have witnessed in trouble. All 3 times were because of the heat.

This next pic is a thumbs down around 10.5 or so

Let’s get back to the race. I had lost the 1:55 pace group, and the 2:00 group had gained on me. I was hoping I could just hold with them to the finish, but the soupy mashed potatoes said no. There was one more water stop, I think just past 10, right where we handed off the guy having problems. I took 2 cups of Gatorade and 2 cups of water. I drank both Gatorades and one of the waters; the other water went on my head. I for sure didn’t want let the 2:15 pacer come past me. So I just kept my little walk/run going to the finish line. It was so freaking hot these last couple of miles, and there were no more aid stations. They had 4, and should have had at least 2 more if not 3. The final splits were 10:44, 10:40, 10:28, and the final point one was 9:23. As we turned the last 2 corners coming back into the shopping square, there were people everywhere cheering. Here's a pic of me coming into the finish line.

My finish time was 2:04:36. This was good for O/A place of 299/964, and an AG place of 21/52.

My next half is planned for Sept 20; I will have a few races scattered through the summer as I continue to build and maintain my base. I would like to point out, that during this cycle, I had a lot of good MLR’s during the week of 7-9 miles, and my highest weekly average of 34.5 prior to any of the 8 halves I’ve done. I will use the Ryan Hall 10 week plan again in Sept, try not to do 18.5 miles the day before, and hope for a good strong race from start to finish. I am ready for Alabama winter to return, and although it was temporarily here this morning, I would like it to stay longer. It was 40 degrees, raining, sleeting, and a few places were having some light snow. I am definitely a cold weather runner. I will not try to over analyze these past 2 weeks, but some of the numbers I keep up with, pointed to a strong race for the second HM….maybe next time.

I almost think if it weren’t for the 18.5 miles the previous day, I would have been able to hold the 8:40 pace for 5 more miles. The outcome of this weekend was a quite memorable one, so I have no regrets about anything. I got a really cool beer mug for completing the 32.6 mile challenge, and gained some bragging rights. My foot didn’t go nummy ass did, lol), and I didn’t have stomach cramps, so that’s a win.

Thanks for reading,

Mitch

Impressive performance, Hog!

Great job, Mitch!  Sounds like a fun weekend!

It sounds like a really fun and memorable weekend.  You should feel really proud of yourself. I think having the good memories of a new challenge met is actually better than getting a PR that will be surpassed in a few months.  It sounds like your foot numbness wasn't a problem this week.  Did you figure out what caused it?

Awesome job Mitch! Love the RR and the pictures!

You're awesome, hog! Congrats on your first du, and you did great with the half given all the miles you had on your legs plus the heat. I would have curled up in a ball somewhere. Kudos to you for helping out a fellow runner, too.

Jerry, not this next weekend, but next year I want to do a 6 hour option of a local ultra.

Baboon, I did a couple of the brick work outs, but not as many as I should have. I'm actually already a little excited about doing it next year with a road bike. I think I could shave 15-20 minutes pretty easy.

D2, the Sept half should be nice. It will be a little hilly, with a long 2 miler. I can't remember the elevation total, but it's gradual.

Ginny, I don't know why I sometimes have the sock issues, but it's been there the entir time I've been running.

Thanks to everyone else for the kind words. I really appreciate you taking the time to read, or look.

Yeah, I've tried things like that thinking my overall fitness would save the day and it never works out all that well.  I have found that if I want to run a really good race, I have to do all of the things that make it a good race such as training appropriately and tapering.  Mind you, if it's not a goal race, I don't mind so much if I have a sub-par performance.  Nice job though of hanging in there for a damn tough weekend.  Wow.  Bitchin' hard.