California International Marathon Race Recap

The time is 1996, it’s my freshman year of High school and I had just been cut from the Freshmen basketball team.  I had dream most of childhood of playing basketball, but I guess I should have seen this coming when twice during the first week’s scrimmage the coach had to blow the whistle and stop play because my glasses fell on the court.  When the coach told me, I was being cut he told me I was “The Wrong Height” I was 5’11 and probably the 2^nd tallest kid I sort of got the hint.  That winter I was playing pickup football with my friends, when my childhood friend was blowing past me all game and catching bombs.  He trash talked me as kids do that he was in shape because he ran XC that fall and that I should try it but I couldn’t beat him.  That spring I decided to get into shape so I decided to try out for track, I did some research about Olympic events and decided I wanted to be a Pole Vaulter and Javelin thrower, the Head Coach took one look at me and said “Distance Runner”.  I was not a natural, I remember cutting runs, skipping practice, and not doing workouts my freshman year.  Distance running was not for me.  22 years later (with an 8-year hiatus) here I am still doing it, running times I couldn’t have ever imagined for a kid who cut a 3 mile run down to 1 constantly freshmen year.

This weekend started with a rabbit Team Dinner Friday night where I met teammates that I have shared a journey with on social media for 6 months now, into a rabbit shake-out run on Saturday morning.  Meeting up with my sister, my friend Mary, her husband Jon and my good pal AnnMarie on Saturday after hitting the expo, we enjoyed a low-key dinner together.  Never have I felt more at peace before a race then hanging out in my Airbnb doing dinner together just talking about life and everything with these lovely people.  Find yourself someone who keeps you calm before a race AND NEVER LET THEM GO.  I went to bed that night, excited and ready for whatever the day would bring.  A 4:30am Uber ride(not used to this city life) with Mary got us to the buses early and off we went.  Only our bus got lost, ended up in the wrong area and had some fun encounters with volunteers to figure out where we were supposed to be and a local hero on the bus got us back on track.  As I said earlier, having a calm at peace person like Mary with you race morning and nothing can worry you.  We shared some laughs and warmed up together before we said our goodbyes and off to the corrals we went.  I was probably 1000 runners back when the gun went off, can’t say I’ve started that far back in a while, it took me 9 seconds to get to the starting line but off I went, CIM was here.

I read my Puppy Unicorn race day email from Coach David many times that week, it is not filled with paces, or race plans or any of that.  It is filled with everything a runner needs to be calm, to enjoy the process, to enjoy this day and to make sure we have clean narratives in our mind of what’s coming.  I was mentally ready and off I went.  I went out calm”ish” I was sort of blowing past runners but I was pretty far back.  The funny thing is I may have been 3000 miles from home but I can’t say I have ever known more runners in a race in my life.  Between Instagram, local running friends, rabbit or SWAP teammates for the first 2 miles every time I passed someone I was like “Hey What’s up!”.  About 2 miles in I rolled into rabbitElite teammate Michele who said she wanted to run 2:35(haha), I wanted to go out a little slower so I just tucked in with her at 2 and ran into Sean O’Leary for about the 5^th different race this year.  We keep finding each other out there.  So the three of us were running together I was making some jokes I found funny, doubtful they were.  We had a good laugh when Michele had her first ever water bottle pickup from a fluid table dropped it and it rolled a good 10 meters from her.  About 6 miles in I looked back and saw we were now not 3 of us but a pack of about 35 runners we were leading down the street, where did everyone come from?  Why was I doing all the work?  Was that Wayne in front of us?  Onward we went.

It was Wayne in front us, my old co-worker who I spent 2 years training with but has since moved.  Honestly I had to sound like such a dork as I screamed, WAYNE BLAS at mile 7 of a marathon around a bunch of very quiet determined runners.  We caught up a bit as we kept rolling on with this ever growing pack.  We were not running 2:35 pace but probably closer to 2:30 pace.  At this point I was vested so I smiled and kept on rolling.  Around mile 9, I just got going a little bit up a hill and then next thing I noticed I had broken off from the pack and off I went feeling fabulous.  In my mind I thought I could go anywhere from 2:26 to 2:31 on this day depending on any number of factors.  So as I started rolling and I clicked off back to back 5:20 miles and was feeling great, by mile 11 I rolled up alongside Steph Bruce and Sara Crouch and another woman runner who were in 2,3,4.  Gave them a great job as I had every other runner I passed and kept rolling ahead.  I was feeling great, and now in a great rhythm clicking off 5:35’s to 5:40’s while basically dominating the USATF TV coverage haha.  I have received many photos and messages about too much Nick Klastava on the woman’s feed (like there could ever be too much of me).  Up to the half we went and 1:14:25 was on the clock.  Welp never been here before, but that’s fine.

At the half you are basically on a REALLY long stretch of road you can see in front of you, so at this point I just sort of got in the best consistent pace I could and took as much energy as I could from the crowd every time I could.  The paces were coming naturally and these were numbers I’m not really used to, 5:35, 5:37, 5:41, 5:40 split after split of perfection.  Earlier this year these were 10k, 10 mile splits I ran not Miles 14-18 of a Marathon.  My friend Alex who was absolutely amazing and I saw probably 10-15 times on the course had some excellent cheers including my all-time favorite “Your Doing it Nick!”.  I was doing it, still on 2:28 pace, sub 2:30 it was all there for the taking.  Let’s talk fueling for a second, I went against the number 1 rule and changed my fuel on race day to Maurten’s gels.  Let me tell you I hands down made the absolute right call.  Not only did it taste a million times better, was it so much easier on my stomach but every time I took one it hit me right away.  I managed to get 3 of them in by mile 13 but, I also only brought 3 (idiot) so at mile 18 when I needed more fuel I took out a Gu.  I have taken them many times before but it didn’t sit well this late in a race, probably mixing didn’t help either.  I wish I had 1-2 more Maurten’s with me but I won’t make that mistake next time.

I rolled up to 20 and made runner mistake #1 at this point in a race.  I did some quick math and said, As long as I don’t start running these splits you got it in the bag.  I hit 20 in 1:53:40(never EVER been here before, not even in this stratosphere).  So quick math 36:19 10k and I’m golden, as long as I don’t start seeing any 6’s I’m good.  Why do we do this as runners, for 20 miles I was smiling, not aware of pace I was on or splits really, just cruising but at 20 I fell back to old ways and give myself a mental out.  Mile 21 my pace dropped to 5:46 no big deal let’s just keep that but then I started to slow and by 21.5 I was down to over 6:00 pace.  This was happening fast, what was going on we got to snap out of this.  Then I head some cheering Come on Steph, yup I knew what that meant.  I’ve written a long IG post about it so check that out if you want more dets here but needless to when one of my running idols passes you at mile 21.5 you go with her.  For 1 mile side by side we ran, all the cheers I have once received were replaced with Go Steph, but I just enjoyed them like they were my own.  Honestly one of the coolest moments of my running career next to sharing the last 10 miles of a race gone terrible bad with a friend at JFK50.  By about 22.5 after a 5:40 mile with Steph I started feeling like I might throw up, I had to slow down.  Steph continued on and I took advantage to just keep her from getting too far away to pull me along for 1 more mile, 5:50 as she was gone.  I was slowing but I might still get this, at least I had fought off the 6’s.

From about mile 21 on you enter the “Streets of Sacramento” which basically means if you look at the street signs they count down from 57^th street to 17^th with many named streets in the middle to annoy you.  I was in hell, sign after sign telling me I had so many blocks to go.  Mile 25 became the struggle, my hamstring which was tight all race was now not cooperating, my stride had been shorten and I was struggling.  I finished mile 25 and it was my first mile over 6:00, I looked at the clock and did some math and realized my goal of sub 2:30 was now gone unless I pulled out a 5:15 or something (nope not happening).  I had noticed something else interesting my friend Alex who had been cheering me all race, was also there to cheer his girlfriend Michele.  Well as the later miles went on I had been noticing he was cheering me and then on his bike quicker and quicker and I didn’t take notice until Mile 25 when he basically cheered me and I saw him on his bike seconds later.  Before I could put 2 and 2 together boom there went Michele still not run 2:35 pace.  I gave a cheer and tried to summon any strength I could to go with her and help her catch 3^rd place but not today.  This mile lasted forever, I was moving best I could I knew 2:30:XX was still possible and that’s a goal let’s do it.  As I rolled around the last turn I saw the big clock and saw if I kicked in to sub 2:31, or officially 2:30:47.  Woof that hurt, I saw some local area friends post-race as my friend Dickson had crushed a 12 year old PR.  Post-race my amazing sister was there which was awesome to see her.

As I stumbled around post-race, I ran into so many friends, I got interviewed by the local news where I proceeded to spell my name on camera as NICHLOAS ALASTAVA, Marathon brain is real folks.  I found Mary who had run 2:48, also a 7 minute PR and was delirious because she basically ran 26.2 miles on 2 shot blocks(no not packs, just 2 shot blocks).  But she crushed it anyway.  I ran into some rabbit PRO and Elite teammates, found out Brogan from rabbit won the whole race, my friends Curly and Jarret had both run OTQ’s, I was so excited to see my friend Ryan Miller who has twice been within 20 seconds of an OTQ breakthrough and run 2:14. The rabbitElite ladies absolutely crushed it,  Michele had placed 4^th overall and ran an 11 minute PR and holds the 12^th fastest time on the qualified Olympic trials list, is 25 years old and you know #notsponsored.  My friend Allison Cleaver (drop the Mendez) crushed Anotha One and ran 2:36 for the A standard while my friend AnnMarie also ran a 7 minute PR (man do a group dinner together and we all run 7 minute PR’s) for 2:37.  Local friends who I have run into every race this fall Julia ran 2:36 also while at like 100 years old Jason ran 2:42 very close to his PR. The rest of the day consisted of me getting to hang out with some elites at the post race party when my first Melissa (also huge 10 minute PR snagging that OTQ) snuck me in, and then I spent the night celebrating everyone’s amazing results.

What a journey, 1 month ago, I was a 1:13 marathoner who has spent much of 2018 putting tons of pressure on himself with every race and running much much slower as the year dragged on.  I was feeling the need to BE ELITE, instead of just being the runner David had taught me to be.  I went into Richmond thinking if I ran my PR I would be ok and then maybe 2:35 at CIM would be good.  My 1:11 there and now 2:30 here has still completely shocked me.  I never ever thought I’d be here.  70-minute half, 2:30 full, these are barriers I dreamed impossible 8 years ago when I started running again.  I thought I lost my chance after taking 8 years off, that I would just settle for being an older runner who missed his glory years.  Now, I believe none of that.  I believe my best is yet to come, I believe 2019 I am going to scare myself even with the times I am going to run, or to quote Nike “Don’t ask if your dreams are crazy, ask if they’re crazy enough”.  I spent an entire weekend being around rabbit professional and elite teammates believing in me and telling me what they think I can run.  I met Matt Llano and his parents at BWI who asked me “You going after an OTQ?  We think you should”.  So what’s next for me?  I’m not sure, nothing is set in stone yet.  I know in 2019 I’ll be 37, I’ll have my second daughter on the way in January and I am dreaming bigger than I ever once imagined.  But what I know is having rabbit, SWAP and the amazing Baltimore running community by my side I have never felt more loved and supported in my entire life.  There is absolutely no one telling me what I can’t do, just telling me to believe in myself.  Everything about this weekend was amazing from start to finish.  I met friends for the first time, I met and ran with running hero’s, I saw local runners many miles away and shared an amazing weekend with rabbit and friends and family.  This is what running and the running community is all about, and if 2019 continues like this I will continue to be blessed.

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.

Team, Squad, Fam, whatever you call it. Why it is important to me

For me, my entire running career has taken place while I have been on a team (speaking of which I should write my Running Origin Story one day).  I started running in High School and immediately joined the track and XC teams and continued my career into College and ran D-1 at Monmouth.  Once I graduated college I completely stopped running for about 8 years until moving to MD.  There is about a 7-month period where I trained without a team until I met Ryan McGrath and joined the Falls Road Running team and that has been my existence of my running.  So, for me when I think of running, I have always thought of it as a team sport (it is).  The things I know about running are all social and revolve around being a part of something bigger than just me.  In High School and College, we represented the school and we ran with school/team pride to do our best (but in reality we ran for each other the most) and now post collegiality I run for Falls Road.  Obviously, I race myself to run a faster time and to improve but I thrive as part of a group for so many more reasons than that.

For all my life I’ve known group runs, track days, trips to races, and pre-race meetings with the coaches.  We were all there together competing against ourselves but we were a family.  If you’ve never raced in high school or college and didn’t get to experience this, to me it was always amazing.  We were all humans we all didn’t get along but we all pushed one another to be our bests.  So, when I started running post collegiality those first 7 months I felt lost.  Yes, it was good to get out and exercise and lose weight but running to me was always linked to this competitive team idea and it was hard to shake it.  Probably one of the reasons once I found Falls Road my competitive fire returned so quickly.  Everyday in HS/College I would grab a group of teammates doing a similar run and catch up on the day, talk about college stuff like which girls definitely weren't going to date me, and we’d talk about our goals.  Every track day we’d line up for interval after interval and grind ourselves to exhaustion together.  We’d pace off one another, encourage one another if someone fell back, and all dread the next interval or worry about what comes next for those scary workouts where coach didn’t tell us the full workout. 

So, post collegiality I was so lucky to stumble upon the Falls Road Running Team because honestly from talking to friends and others groups like this don’t exist often.  This group was founded by some amazing people who took a couple of friends who loved running and made this amazing family (I will continually use this word to describe us) that transcends running.  The reason I use family is because we are all more than just teammates who all race.  This group has been what is always so special about running to me, it’s honest like a second family.  We do runs together, we do workouts together, we go to races together but above all else we know and are a part of each other’s lives (maybe sometimes too much just kidding).  Through the years this group has grown up from 20 somethings with no responsibilities to 30-year old’s who are getting married, to having kids and then finding more and more amazing people to join the group who are now going through all those same life events.  We celebrate birthdays, we celebrate made up holidays because Ryan has made it a tradition, baby showers, random happy hours, or just a random event that Graham came up with to make us drink (50/50/50 next year!).  To all of us who embrace this Fam, it gives back so much to us.  We have a loving running store (Falls Road Running Store) that supports us unconditionally from running to life.  We share our lives, the bad and the good with each other, we are there to help each other on runs but also when we need help in our day to day life.  Our love for running is what brought us all together but that is not strong enough to keep us together forever, and because we embraced this love for each other above all else, we have been able to keep this group going for so long.

This past weekend I got to experience once again the joy that is being a part of this special team as we all shipped out to the scariest place in the world the “Eastern Shore of Maryland” to run the Tim Kennard 10 Miler (or 5k, or Peck Family Relay).  Some of us were running a race, some of us were coming back from injuries, some of us were doing workouts it didn’t matter a race was going to be run and that’s what brought us together but the memories (people hate when I use this word) that were made are what I’ll always remember.  We shared drinks together and caught up on our actual lives outside of our splits during the latest workout, we shared a 10pm dinner that I almost fell asleep during, we slept in bathrooms, and lastly, we ran a race.  This weekend I did not race but did a workout with a friend, but when I was finished I took so much joy from hearing the results of all of my friends.  We won money, sweet mugs, ran PR’s and we did it together.  Then as is our usual tradition we took a group photo and then headed off on our separate ways.  But only so separate because once again this week many of us will come together through running to suffer on a run, but also to share our lives together.

The technical term to describe me would be a Highly Sensitive Person, which basically means I have tons of feelings, so to me a lot of this stuff is extra special/emotional because of what this group means to me.  When I moved to MD, my wife and I had no one we knew down here and this amazing group of runners took us in and became such a big part of our lives and helped us get started down here.  There was no trial period, none of the woman didn’t talk to my wife because she didn’t run, it was immediate love and wanting to get to know us.  Even as my family has grown by 1 my daughter has been embraced by this group like she is just another member of a growing family.  We fight like any family, we all don’t always get along but we all share the same love for what we have created and what we want to see continue to do good for many years.  And I know deep down all of us know how special it is to have an opportunity to be a part of something like this because 10-15 years down the road we might regret not having it if it is gone.  And I think it's important once in a while to take a step back and acknowledge that.  I wish everyone is lucky enough to be a part of Squad like this at some point in their lives.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and if you have any questions or comments don’t hesitate to share with me.  Look for me over at the Believeintherun.com website in the coming weeks as I take my talents to the Shoe Review world.  Hopefully with positive feedback I won’t be kicked off the site the first day!