Run warm up/down 26:34 [1] 3.0 mi (8:51 / mi) +40m 8:30 / mi
Went up to the Eastern States 20 mile race today.
A few comments, before the race report, about how the organization of this race is pretty amateur. Now here's the thing: I love amateurish race organization. I love trail races that don't have chip timing but a board with finish results. I love races that dispense with gimmickry and where everything is about just going out and running. And this race has all of that. And a great, beautiful course, good support, and a good feed at the end. But there are a few logistics things (and I say this from someone who's put on a couple of ski races, and advised the Birkie on transportation logistics, and if I may say so my suggestions made things work much better) that really need to be improved.
1. Don't charge extra for the bus. Just tell people to park at the finish, and tell everyone to use the bus.
2. Don't make the last bus two hours before the start, especially if (as is the case for the half) there's nowhere indoors to wait. If you do that, people will overload the late buses. Put the last bus at 9:30, and people will better distribute themselves.
3. Oh, and your website needs to have much better directions to things like the buses, with some graphics ("park here", "secondary parking", "load buses here").
4. And some signs out saying "race here" or something.
5. In fact, the whole website needs an overhaul (I am going to offer to set up a Wordpress install for them, since that would (should) make it much easier for people to navigate and for them to change and update. They've had the same site design since 2006, at least.
6. And then the gear drop bus. Around 9:30, as the last buses were coming in, the race director announced that bags needed to go on the gear buses. An hour and a half before the race began. It was 30˚, so you'd have the option of either leaving your stuff at the start (who knows if the school will be kept open for four hours, so maybe outside in the bushes) and going for a warm-up, or sitting inside in your singlet so you don't freeze. Want to keep a water bottle until the start? Too bad. So then I pack my bag, fuming, and go out to the buses. And ask when the buses are leaving. "Oh, not until after the race start." Wait really? So I go inside and ask at the reg table when the gear buses are leaving. "Not until after the race start." So I keep my bag, put on my extra gear, and go out for a short warm up.
Here's their reasoning: if we waited until later, everyone would go to the buses at the same time. But there are three buses, and 750 runners. That's 250 runners per bus. So even if you say "please get your gear bags to the bus by 10:45" you probably have a 20 minute window of people handing their bags to the bus. That's about 10 bags per minute, which really isn't that bad. Or, you have people make a pile of bags near the bus, and then you put them on the bus, since there's plenty of time (two hours) to get the buses to the finish. But if you tell people they need to have their gear bag on the bus an hour and a half before the race, they are going to get angry, then suspicious, and then ask, and then you tell them "oh, well, yeah, we lied" is just annoying. Apparently the race has grown somewhat (although they had ~600 people in 2006 or so, so not that much) but it's not a big race. Just tell people the truth, and they'll do you right. It's a very friendly race, overall.
Anyway, once I figured out the bags, George and I went on a 3 mile run around the neighborhood with a few short pick-ups, my legs felt pretty good after yesterday, and we had plenty of time to get ready for the race (body glide, sun block, goos, bathroom—women using stalls and men using urinals!). And thus ends the longest log entry ever for a 3 mile warm up run before a 20 mile race.
Run race 2:17:47 [3] 20.1 mi (6:51 / mi) +45m 6:48 / mi
What a great race. I'm probably going to write more critiquing the race logistics than about the actual race itself. But it was great. They marched us down to the start line and around 11 we weren't all there but no matter, we started off at about 11:04. The RD started the clock on his phone yelling go and then jumped in to a pace car (covered in Elizabeth Warrenesque stickers) behind the police car which accelerated about as fast as a Yaris can, that is, barely faster than the lead runners.
The course went over the Memorial Bridge which was gorgeous, and then on the streets down through Portsmouth. Going out with the pack we were running a 6:20 pace or so, and I told George I wanted to slow down because I wanted to run even, steady splits and not try to win or anything. So we dropped off that pack (Drew was in it, apparently he ran 6:15s until he crashed around mile 15) and mostly ran on our own or with small packs. The weather was great, and the scenery, beaches, inlets and quite a bit of snow and ice, gorgeous. Running along the Atlantic, especially when not on the Hampton boardwalk (which is quaint in its own special way) was stunning, especially with the cool temperatures (35), warm sun and sea breeze.
Oh, right, sea breeze. The forecast was for light winds from the west—a crosswind. But what this meant is that there was very little mixing, and so the land heated up and the ocean did not and there was a persistent breeze off the water from the southeast that probably only penetrated a few hundred meters inland, but we were never more then a few hundred meters inland after about mile 6. Oh, and we were running south or southwest, so the breeze was often quite nasty. We spent quite a bit of time pack running along the way, but mostly at a conversational pace, which was really nice.
Around mile 10 it was just the two of us, and with the ocean there, I suggested we sing sea shanties, which was great, with some gasping in between the call and response. But that dragged us a couple of miles. We were generally running 6:50s, which was fine; I figure the breeze cost 5 to 10 seconds per mile given how persistent it was. One mile over 7, and the first and last miles at 6:30 or so. Faster splits to bookend the race.
I never really fell apart, took two goos and all the feeds, and we kept our pacing even in to the last mile. At that point, George ran off (no 30k ski for him yesterday) and I started running faster, turning in a 6:30 for the last mile to the finish, right across the Massachusetts border. Oh, yeah, the only gimmick of this race, you run from Maine in to New Hampshire and the race finishes right across the border in to Massachusetts.
I got a drink, and then we played "I'm in New Hampshire / I'm in Massachusetts" (also "no sales tax, 9% meals tax / 6.25% sales tax and meals tax") where the pavement changed, cheered some folks on, and found our bags on the buses and got on buses back to the feed. Although I went for a quick jog on a snow drift out to the dunes and ocean—should have taken my camera. It was gorgeous, but my legs were hurting a bit.
The ride back on the bus was long, as a two lane bridge backed up because the race course crossed the road and we were waiting for runners. I leaned out the window and gave a lot of high fives, and then went and ate two bowls of soup, four slices of Dominos Pizza-like substance, chips, cake, M&Ms and other things. Drank water. Drove home. Shower. And then a lot of sleep.
Injury report; achilles feels fine (yeah, super flat course), calves are tight but not dogging, and I felt like I could hold that pace for another 6 miles. Which would give me a 2:59. But I'm not skiing 40k the day before the marathon (I don't think).