18:40 (6:01/mile)
2nd overall (out of ~48)

I love small time races. I was back in my home town of Madison, WI for the weekend and wanted to run with my nephew again in a road race. This was the 1st Annual Suzy Favor Hamilton Walk/Run to benefit Capital Candlelighters, a local group raising money for children’s cancer research. Now, Suzy Favor Hamilton is a local hero from my home town, just 4 years older than I (but MUCH more accomplished) and is also a babe and a half (in my eyes) and always has been.

She is such a babe that she put out her own calendar in 1997 that included pictures like these:
      My niece and my daughter figured out early how excited I was to meet her and gave me the appropriate amount of ribbing for it.
        She was there in the beginning set of announcements and wished us all well. On the ‘walk’ to the start line she led the crowd and I asked her how fast she was planning on running (Her all time best 5K time is 15:06, mine is 17:40) and she said she was going to run with a friend somewhere around 22:00. I said ‘Oh well, I will meet you at the finish, telling her I was shooting for 18:00.
        Light rain and 50 degrees was our starting conditions. The track was wet, but still fast. The weather probably kept the ‘race day’ registrations down. That and it being the 1st annual.
       The race began and I convinced my nephew to start out slow (as well as myself) and then pick up the pace at the 0.5 mile part. That was smart, as I got into my rhythm early and did not feel tired at all during the race. Since it was such a small race, (less than 50 finishers) my time was good enough to finish in second place. Which, for the first (and should be the last) time ever in my life I finished ‘in the money’. Yes, you read that right. I won $50 for my second place finish. Well, this was a fund raiser for children’s cancer, and my only ‘donation’ was my entry fee, so I decided to give my prize money back to the organization as a donation, but I wanted to get a little out of it. I walked up to Suzy (right after the race) and told her that I was willing to give my $50 prize money back as a donation if she would A) sign my nephew’s and my racing bibs and B) let us take a picture of her with us at the finish line.

       Her first response was ‘Oh, how about a signed glossy photo and a copy of my book?’ I said, well, sure, I guess so. The family and I went to breakfast at the local McDonalds and then we came back for the awards ceremony. Two very cool things happened when I got up on stage to be recognized as the second place finisher. I leaned over to the nice lady who was writing the checks to the winners and as she started to write my name I stopped her and said ‘I am donating the $50 back to the organization, so if you just want to save time and energy, just don’t write the check’. She looked at me like she was about to cry, she was so surprised I said such a thing. Suzy was right there and said (again) how great of a thing I had just done and then she asked me what my shoe size was. I told her and she then said that she was going to send me a pair of Nike running shoes (her sponsor) but it would be several weeks before I got them. As I was leaving the stage she gave me a huge hug and a nice big kiss on the cheek.
      Sometimes, it pays to be a nice guy. In this case, it paid me in spades. I have to say this is one of the most memorable races in my entire running career.

Johnstown, PA
3:14:29 (7:26/mile)
11th place overall (out of 111)
4th in age (out of 15)
Dead toenail count: 3
Official Results 

Oh, were to begin with the excuses…
     Well, the start time is 9am in early October, which normally would be fine. At 9, the weather was great, low 60s. But this is a marathon, and the last 6 miles were in open beating-down sun with temperatures in the mid 80’s. That slowed down everyone this day. At the finish line, everyone I talked to was disappointed with their slow times. That’s excuse #1. A few states over at the same time, the Chicago marathon was shut down due to hot weather.
      Excuse #2 (the big one): On Friday morning, a mere 51 hours before I was to start my race I woke up with the initial signs of bad sinus infection. The last time this happened to me before a race (my 50 miler attempt in Nov 2006 in Chicago) I self medicated, not wanting to see a doctor and get told not to run. That was dumb last time, so I was smarter this time. I was at my doctor’s office right at 8 am when they opened up and begged to see him. He was full that morning, but they got me in, and sure enough, sinus infection. We decide to treat it ‘aggressively’ and he asks if I want t shot of antibiotic to kick start the drugs. I say yes, of course. They give me the shot in the meaty part of my upper left thigh. I have had this done before and quickly remembered how unbelievably sore it gets after such a shot. There were times when I could not stand it was so painful. Imagine someone placing a large board on your leg and then pounding board as hard as they can with a sledgehammer. It was worse than that. I worked out the muscle most of Friday, such that I didn’t feel the soreness on Saturday morning. Good. I take the drugs and they help, but I am not completely over it when I wake up (after not sleeping well) at 3:45 Sunday morning. Ok, so race morning and I pound down my antibiotic, some Zycam, and some Dayquil. A little nasal spray for good measure and I head out to the start. I know my congestion is going to slow me a bit, but I try very hard to stay motivated.
 
    At about mile 8, my entire left leg begins to feel ‘sore’ as if I did a hard run on it recently, which of course, I had not. What was weird was that A) it was my entire leg, not just one or two muscles, and B) it was only my left leg. After about a half mile of pain, I realized it was the shot. My leg had not fully recovered from the ‘soreness’ brought on from the shot, and so I had to suffer through it for the last 18 miles of the race. I was on a sub-2:55 pace (about 6:39/mi) until that point, but I had to slow up and in fact walk a few sections near the end.
     So, the drugs were needed to fight the infection which slowed me down a little, for sure, but the shot slowed me down more. I blame the sinus infection, either way
 Excuse #3: Ok, so yes, I was shooting for a PR is this race. Even after Friday morning’s fiasco I thought I still might be able to do it. I have stopped following a training schedule (per se) a lot time ago because I didn’t like how it tied my hands and made my running feel like work. So why did I think I could run a PR? Well, I have been training with my Cross Country team since August, doing some hard workouts, or so I thought.
    I sort of have made the decision to run marathons for fun, not racing every one of them. The reason is two-fold. 1) I can’t ‘race’ a marathon every 3 weeks, I’ll die. 2) Following a set training schedule just sort of bums me out these days. So what I have decided to do this winter season is just work on getting my base mileage up to 65-70 miles per week. I have been sitting at 45-50 for a while now. Get my base up with only a little bit of ‘fast’ work, not paying any attention to any sort of training schedule and running Harpeth Hills, Vegas, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale as training runs. Get my finishers medal and say thank you. I know I can survive, and someday I will get back to focusing on a race and even following a training schedule for it, but not for a little while.