Monday, November 12, 2018

Richmond Race Recap New Half PR


It’s been a while since I blogged but Saturday was an absolutely remarkable day for me and I really wanted to capture a race recap and some thoughts while they are fresh in my mind.  Since becoming a part of rabbitElite back in May there was a good couple of months where I put unnecessary amounts of pressure on myself to perform.  I wanted to live up to the name and I felt I had more prove myself again and again.  For a 6-week period leading up to Boilermaker 15k, I put immense pressure on every race.  I had to hit goals, I HAD to now to measure up, or to prove myself to everyone.  Race after race I fell flat on those goals, I felt horrible during the race, and then felt pretty sorry for myself post-race.  Luckily as I have mentioned many times my coach is perfectly suited to handle this and many times just kept posting subtle reminders to love myself, laugh off life, not take any of this too seriously.  After Boilermaker we shut down racing for a bit, I wanted an aggressive Fall with races almost every weekend and he was nice enough to talk me out of it.  We put some races on the calendar but no pressure, train through races just to get me back to how I was earlier this year, enjoying running.

As my fall marched on towards California International Marathon, I had 3 races lined up: Navy AirForce Half Marathon, Army 10 Miler and Richmond Half.  The first two I’ve posted about but the weather for both of those was 70+ degrees with around 95% humidity and both I was very happy with.  As we got close to Richmond, I was feeling more like myself from earlier this year.  I was not stressing paces, times, workouts.  I was just running and enjoying everything.  I’ve posted about the week leading up to my race before so I will not go into that but I really had no expectations going into this race.  A PR was definitely in play (1:13:31 from earlier this year) or just a solid race to keep building on.  It would just depend on my back and how I felt, but I knew no matter what I was going to have a fun time down in Richmond with my large group of friends.

So, race morning I got up and popped two Aleve and stumbled around to figure out what to wear.  I was nice enough to have a friend Emily Ballantyne to stay with while in Richmond and she was an amazing host, helping me get situated in the morning.  We left her place and warmed up to the start line and my back was tight, ugh…  Met up with some friends at the start line and finished my warm up did some strides and figured I’d give this thing a go.  I pulled out my secret weapon my Nike Vaporflys and as soon as I put them on I just felt fast and everything else about my back left my mind.  I did some strides and got to the start line and off the gun went and at this point anything was possible but I was in it.

I like to look at Half marathons in pieces, the first 5k is just get out comfortable, pack in, don’t worry too much about anything and just get ready.  Then after that 10 miles is more manageable, but for Richmond all everyone told me was the last 5k was fast, so I knew I just had to get to 10 miles in a solid time and the course would do the rest.  I settled in early as leaders just took off, and I found a nice pack of 7 or 8 runners and I tucked in as there was some wind.  Around two miles Charlie broke the pack a little and 3 of us crested a hill and then went down a road for an out and back.  On our way back, the pack a little again and it was just 2 of us heading towards 5 miles when I excitedly saw Cheryl who has photographed so many of my races this year with the absolute more amazing photos!  I focused on looking good, you know for the gram.  Rolled through 5 miles in around 27:15 and then put my head down as we headed into the park.  A nice pack of 3 of us worked together in the park and it was so awesome.   Each one of us at a different time pushing the pace while the rest of the group followed along and it really helped me on these rolling miles as none of us wanted to let our pace drop.  And the splits kept rolling off nice and easy, 5:19, 5:21, 5:22, etc

As I came up on 10 it was really the first time I let myself acknowledge I am having a DAY. I still felt really good and I passed 10 miles in 54:26, a 20 second PR and I knew I had the easiest part of the course ahead of me.  The one runner I was with took off and I thought I might be able to keep him in a view and make a move later so I kept the distance between us the same for the next 2 miles.  I did some quick math at 11 and found out if I ran 2 6-minute miles the rest of the way I’d still PR, but screw that I wanted more.  I want sub 72 minutes; sub 71 minutes even let’s dig deep.  From 12-13 I saw my buddy Jerry shouting at me, my friend Ryan who uttered something along the lines of complete shock and awe that I was this far up and running this fast.  Which brought a smile to my face, and then Emily just in the perfect place to cheer and snap this video!  I made the last turn and was told it’s all downhill from here.  Let’s be honest as a runner when you hear stuff like that you are always somewhat suspicious because half the time there is always some incline or something, they are forgetting but I looked straight ahead of me and we are basically running down this steep decline for 800 meters and I opened up my stride and said let’s get after it.  I went as hard as I could downhill without feeling like I was going to trip and roll down the hill and I turned the final corner and saw the clock counting up from 1:10:52, and then saw it just tick over 1:11 before I crossed a couple seconds behind the pack I had been trying to run down since 10.5.





I literally couldn’t believe it, I just ran 71 minutes for 13.1 miles, 2.5 minutes faster than NJ this year when I thought I was all out.  I saw my friend Caleb right in front of me in the chute and we chatted a bit, he was 1 second off his PR but ran a great race.  Then I turned around and watched as my Baltimore crew came flying in.  PR after PR, Maxime Chevee 1:11, Sean Caskey 1:13, Tristram Thomas, 1:13, Drew Landgren 1:15, Ryan Stas 1:16.  The whole crew lit it up, even the ladies with us Michelle and Shannon both ran huge PR’s while Bryn got back out there with a solid race, and all my boys in the 8k absolutely crushed (Andrew Cantor, Zack Kaminski, Brad Leatherbarrow, Chris DeCamps).  But Emily was the big hero for me this day, she carried my bag with her stuff the whole time.  She came out and cheered and took photos of me, and she was the most supportive person for me post-race.  Find yourself a friend who will unconditionally support you at a race and give up their weekend and you know you have met an amazing person.  Also, the other big hero of the weekend is my amazing wife who watched my daughter back in Maryland by herself while I went out and chased my goals.  A weekend where my daughter seemingly decided it’s time to act like a true 2-year-old and get into everything.  I couldn’t do any of this without my amazing wife and how much she supports me in chasing these crazy running goals.  Additionally, we didn’t just all crush the race, we proceeded to go out and crush the town of Richmond and I’m pretty sure as Cantor would say, “Drank the town out of beers”



Two Days later I look back at this race and I still am in shock, I ran 4 straight 16:54’s 5k’s this day and two 10k’s around 33:50.  Back earlier this summer when I was putting too much pressure on myself, I was running 17:11 5k’s and stumbled through a 35:25 10k.  It’s not like in 5 months my fitness basically doubled, but thanks to my amazing support system and my coach, my mindset changed.  I believed in myself, I enjoyed everything much more.  The photo’s I keep sharing from races over the last 6 months are full of me smiling and enjoying it all, when in the past they were full of grimace.  I am constantly thanking fans and volunteers when things get hard and believing everything my coach is saying and what I know to be true in my head.  I am not going into a race saying I need to run this time to define me, I am just running a race and letting it all come to me.  I have goal times in my head sure, but when I am racing now it is for the love of the game.  I am 20 days out from CIM and just ready for whatever will happen that day but today was one of those days in my life where I finally put it all together.  And a lot of that has to do with me being much less hard on myself as a runner and believing.