I got to keep on Moving
Indianapolis Marathon
10/17/09State # 13
3hrs 47min 0 sec
This marathon was by far the hardest I’ve pushed it on a marathon, but it actually felt good for the most part. Why did I push it this hard? I still trained with the 9:30 pace group. This year we had a new name, the “Dirty Flirty Thirties” I think we had the most guys training this year than usual, and they wanted to be dirty and the girls needed something more feminine so they were flirty. Kathleen’s “Kick It” group this year grew and is now known as the kids that are “kicking it dirty style.” For those that don’t know what kicking it is: The last 1.5 miles of our long runs, they pick up the pace. Because I’m the pace leader, I have to stick at the constant 9:30 pace, and I never get to partake in the kicks. On the week days, I mixed slower runs for when I was tired with some tempos, ‘hills’ and the like, but didn’t focus on any of that in a nature like I was going to run 8:30s in a marathon. My dear friend “Ultra Jen” has been blowing me away this year with her running skills. She broke an 8 or 6 yr or some long time record at a 100 mile ultra marathon on a track. She just kept running in circles and in 19 hours and 21 minutes she finished. Now if you do the math, that’s four sub 5hour marathons put together. THEN she went out to St. George Utah- her state #24 (my lucky number, which I think it might be a universal lucky number) and PRed by 30 minutes, qualifying for Boston. I am so happy for her on all of this! And while she might not brag about it, I will brag for her.In the meantime, Rachel A. got me a HUGE map to mark my completed states on. I was staring at it one day thinking what Marathons/Ultras Jen and I could do together when I thought, maybe I just need to qualify for Boston and we could experience that together. So, I took her “balls out” approach with me to Indiana.State # 13, should this be an unlucky state? The drive was unlucky but I guess it could have been worse. As we were driving out, heading southbound on I-65, we saw a car heading northbound getting into the median. All I thought was, are they making an illegal U-turn and they think because they are so big they can tough the median? I started to slow down because it made me nervous. The next thing I know, I realize the driver didn’t have control of the car, it hit the center of the median, which had a bunch of rocks, and it crashed into the rocks, which then flew up and I was now dodging rocks. There was only one other big truck in the near area going southbound and luckily no cars crashed. Maria said the car at fault went air born at one point. I was more worried about what was in front of me to see that. We pulled over to check the damage. I got hit by 2 rocks, one is just cosmetic damage. The other rock went under the car, and managed to puncture a hole in the windshield wiper fluid tank which I saw leak out of my car (and some cosmetic damage to the front of the car). As we waited to fill out the police report, I guess I left my lights on and flashers. It was probably an hour in sitting there. The police officer said he’d help get us back on the expressway safely, I get back in the car, and the car won’t start. Battery dead. So I get back out and go to the police officer and told him my battery is dead. We check under the hood to make sure it’s not due to the accident, which it looked fine. So he makes his way around in the grass and gets the police car stuck in some mud. I can’t help but to just stare and LAUGH which when he got unstuck I was hysterically laughing and apologized, but he got it; what else do you do in a situation like this? Maria and I thought we were going to have to push him out, but, he made it and plugged into my car and we got it started on the first turn of the key (though you better believe I closed my eyes wondering if I was going to blow up and open my eyes next in heaven…yes a bit dramatic).So, we were back on the road. We kept on moving. We got to the expo, which was about 1/26.2th the size of the Chicago Marathon expo. We were in and out within 30 minutes. Time to find dinner. Rachel A. was nice enough to give us a list of good Italian places in Indianapolis, but as it was now 7:30pm instead of 5:30pm and I just didn’t want to drive much, we just found the nearest Italian restaurant on my gps. We walk in, and it’s this old man running the whole show himself; from taking our order to firing up the stoves in the kitchen. I made up a story that his restaurant used to be a thriving (it was totally authentic, he had Italian maps all around and books in Italian on the counter), but then maybe his wife got ill or passed away and now as he runs it on his own, it lost it’s reputation and people don’t want to wait to get food as long as we did so it’s now dying. His heat was even broken and he had a little heater sitting out by the tables. It was kind of sad but we felt the need to help this man make some money. It took him too long to get the bill for us so we estimated from the prices on the menu, and gave him a generous tip, the smile on his face when we gave him the money and said we didn’t need change, well that was priceless. (There were about a total of 3 other families there in the time we were there).Backing up a minute, I’m forgetting part of the story. Maria, when she runs a marathon, she is usually eating tons all day. But on this trip, as we were stuck in traffic in Chicago, she started to get car sick. She feared getting physically sick in the car, so she didn’t eat or drink anything on the ride, thinking 3 hours was okay- but it was more like 6 hours with traffic and the accident. So now we have me, who is shaken from my car being damaged and women issues with massive cramps, and Maria who is hungry dehydrated and has a minor hamstring injury.Back on track, we wake up, and get ready for our marathon. Luckily, Maria and I both like a good hour before leaving for the race to wake up and do our rituals. For me it’s always ‘warming the core’ with some sit ups and well…just wake up. For Maria, it’s making sure she gets her cup of coffee and food in her.There was traffic getting to parking, but we managed to time it perfectly, park, walk to the start area, use the port-a-potties check our gear and in within 10 minutes, the race starts. As we walked in the starting line, I saw the sign for 4 hours and was walking back to it, and Maria stopped me and said, “aren’t you going for under 4? Stay here. “ So, Maria (speedy) and I started together, though within 5 steps she was off and running faster. I wanted to make sure I didn’t start too fast, as the weather was same as Chicago a week earlier- in the lower 30s and cold wind so my legs were a little cold and I figured my muscles were too. About a half mile into the run, I made a friend: Ben from Grand Rapids Michigan. Ben and I became fast friends and without him, I don’t know how well I would have done. We traded marathon stories, training methods (he talked here more than me, because I really don’t have much rhyme and reason), talked about our significant others, what we do for a living, I shared Ultra Jen’s stories, and told him how I came with Maria and she’s modest but always seems to place in a race. We talked about my accident on the way, and well, for the first 12 miles, we cruised at an 8:15 average with barely any notice of the distance. Then we hit a hill. It was the 3rd massive hill (but there were many rolling and graduals throughout). It took a lot out of me, for an 8:15 pace and we said goodbye, but I kept him in eye shot until about mile 15 where I caught up to him again but the chatting was cut down drastically and we were just running next to one another.Backing up, I put music on at mile 12 and as I crossed the half marathon checkpoint, my time was 1 hour and 48 minutes. With this time, if you calculate what I need for Boston, I only had 4 minutes to slow down in the second half. And how perfect, Justin Timberlake and Madonna’s 4 minutes song started playing on my ipod. I thought about using that as my race title, but the good ‘ole song of “Aint no one gonna break my stride aint nobody gonna hold me down, oh no I got to keep on moving” seemed to win out.4 minutes, all that I could think was Boston, Boston, Boston, Boston. A 1:47 was a PR for my half marathons (I’ve only officially run 2 so my marathon half times count as well). I could taste Boston, but I knew if I didn’t get it I still had to be happy for my time. Ben and I still ran near each other until about mile 20 but we were no longer talking. The course would go from road to bike path, and the path parts with the falling leaves was real beautiful, my favorite parts. Those were the parts I’d get little bursts of energy. Around mile 17 I saw Maria, as she was on the way back (about mile 19) heading to the finish. I know I was slowing down, I was having 8:40 miles which was still fine to qualify for Boston, if I could keep that up and maybe have at least one more 8:30 mile in me. But I just didn’t know how my body would react with the wall. There was a checkpoint at mile 19, where I had crossed it in 2 hours and 38 minutes, which meant I just had to pull an 8:45ish the rest of the way to qualify for Boston. That next mile was an 8:40. Then came the leg cramps. They were the kind that you think, maybe you should stretch them out and if you stepped wrong you probably would have BIG issues. So I figured, I just needed to keep moving, in a running manner, and take it easy to work the cramps out. At the same time, Ben stopped and started walking, and that’s the last I saw of Ben. With 4 miles left, I was obsessing over my time, I was running 9:45s now, and Boston was lost in sight. So, I put my watch on a different mode so I couldn’t see my time or splits. I tuned into my music and just kept on moving. Of course with one mile left, we had to go up our 4th and final larger hill. I don’t know if walking would have been faster, but I refused to do that. I just kept moving. The last .2 miles, I think took me 3 minutes, but I didn’t care. I crossed the finish in 3 hours and 47 minutes. I broke 4 hours by 13 minutes, state #13, and I PRed by 17 minutes. I didn’t get Boston, but how could I not be happy about that time. Boston is within reach now. And my watch read 26.55 miles…so technically, if the course was overshot (and I have heard complaints about it being longer), then I only have 3 more minutes to cut out before Boston. I still could get there with Jen (and Valerie).After I finished, Maria and I met up. She didn’t say anything about how she did, she was just excited for me. Then I notice, she is holding a Plaque. I said “Maria what’s that?” and she said “oh yeah I placed 3rd for women in the race.” WHAT!? Modest Maria was letting me go on about my finish and here herself, is my superstar! She also PRed, with a hamstring injury, at 3 hours and 12 minutes and took 3rd in the Women’s Division. Maria told me I should check out my statistics, it was a smaller race so she thought I might have placed well. These race results aren’t the cool kind that give you all the statistics, so I don’t know where I finished overall with the females, but I finished 10th for my age division and 224 out of 1005 runners overall.I kept moving, and as Ultra Jen told me to do (after the car accident) “Go kick 13s ass up and down that crap town” …I did just that.
Indianapolis Marathon
10/17/09State # 13
3hrs 47min 0 sec
This marathon was by far the hardest I’ve pushed it on a marathon, but it actually felt good for the most part. Why did I push it this hard? I still trained with the 9:30 pace group. This year we had a new name, the “Dirty Flirty Thirties” I think we had the most guys training this year than usual, and they wanted to be dirty and the girls needed something more feminine so they were flirty. Kathleen’s “Kick It” group this year grew and is now known as the kids that are “kicking it dirty style.” For those that don’t know what kicking it is: The last 1.5 miles of our long runs, they pick up the pace. Because I’m the pace leader, I have to stick at the constant 9:30 pace, and I never get to partake in the kicks. On the week days, I mixed slower runs for when I was tired with some tempos, ‘hills’ and the like, but didn’t focus on any of that in a nature like I was going to run 8:30s in a marathon. My dear friend “Ultra Jen” has been blowing me away this year with her running skills. She broke an 8 or 6 yr or some long time record at a 100 mile ultra marathon on a track. She just kept running in circles and in 19 hours and 21 minutes she finished. Now if you do the math, that’s four sub 5hour marathons put together. THEN she went out to St. George Utah- her state #24 (my lucky number, which I think it might be a universal lucky number) and PRed by 30 minutes, qualifying for Boston. I am so happy for her on all of this! And while she might not brag about it, I will brag for her.In the meantime, Rachel A. got me a HUGE map to mark my completed states on. I was staring at it one day thinking what Marathons/Ultras Jen and I could do together when I thought, maybe I just need to qualify for Boston and we could experience that together. So, I took her “balls out” approach with me to Indiana.State # 13, should this be an unlucky state? The drive was unlucky but I guess it could have been worse. As we were driving out, heading southbound on I-65, we saw a car heading northbound getting into the median. All I thought was, are they making an illegal U-turn and they think because they are so big they can tough the median? I started to slow down because it made me nervous. The next thing I know, I realize the driver didn’t have control of the car, it hit the center of the median, which had a bunch of rocks, and it crashed into the rocks, which then flew up and I was now dodging rocks. There was only one other big truck in the near area going southbound and luckily no cars crashed. Maria said the car at fault went air born at one point. I was more worried about what was in front of me to see that. We pulled over to check the damage. I got hit by 2 rocks, one is just cosmetic damage. The other rock went under the car, and managed to puncture a hole in the windshield wiper fluid tank which I saw leak out of my car (and some cosmetic damage to the front of the car). As we waited to fill out the police report, I guess I left my lights on and flashers. It was probably an hour in sitting there. The police officer said he’d help get us back on the expressway safely, I get back in the car, and the car won’t start. Battery dead. So I get back out and go to the police officer and told him my battery is dead. We check under the hood to make sure it’s not due to the accident, which it looked fine. So he makes his way around in the grass and gets the police car stuck in some mud. I can’t help but to just stare and LAUGH which when he got unstuck I was hysterically laughing and apologized, but he got it; what else do you do in a situation like this? Maria and I thought we were going to have to push him out, but, he made it and plugged into my car and we got it started on the first turn of the key (though you better believe I closed my eyes wondering if I was going to blow up and open my eyes next in heaven…yes a bit dramatic).So, we were back on the road. We kept on moving. We got to the expo, which was about 1/26.2th the size of the Chicago Marathon expo. We were in and out within 30 minutes. Time to find dinner. Rachel A. was nice enough to give us a list of good Italian places in Indianapolis, but as it was now 7:30pm instead of 5:30pm and I just didn’t want to drive much, we just found the nearest Italian restaurant on my gps. We walk in, and it’s this old man running the whole show himself; from taking our order to firing up the stoves in the kitchen. I made up a story that his restaurant used to be a thriving (it was totally authentic, he had Italian maps all around and books in Italian on the counter), but then maybe his wife got ill or passed away and now as he runs it on his own, it lost it’s reputation and people don’t want to wait to get food as long as we did so it’s now dying. His heat was even broken and he had a little heater sitting out by the tables. It was kind of sad but we felt the need to help this man make some money. It took him too long to get the bill for us so we estimated from the prices on the menu, and gave him a generous tip, the smile on his face when we gave him the money and said we didn’t need change, well that was priceless. (There were about a total of 3 other families there in the time we were there).Backing up a minute, I’m forgetting part of the story. Maria, when she runs a marathon, she is usually eating tons all day. But on this trip, as we were stuck in traffic in Chicago, she started to get car sick. She feared getting physically sick in the car, so she didn’t eat or drink anything on the ride, thinking 3 hours was okay- but it was more like 6 hours with traffic and the accident. So now we have me, who is shaken from my car being damaged and women issues with massive cramps, and Maria who is hungry dehydrated and has a minor hamstring injury.Back on track, we wake up, and get ready for our marathon. Luckily, Maria and I both like a good hour before leaving for the race to wake up and do our rituals. For me it’s always ‘warming the core’ with some sit ups and well…just wake up. For Maria, it’s making sure she gets her cup of coffee and food in her.There was traffic getting to parking, but we managed to time it perfectly, park, walk to the start area, use the port-a-potties check our gear and in within 10 minutes, the race starts. As we walked in the starting line, I saw the sign for 4 hours and was walking back to it, and Maria stopped me and said, “aren’t you going for under 4? Stay here. “ So, Maria (speedy) and I started together, though within 5 steps she was off and running faster. I wanted to make sure I didn’t start too fast, as the weather was same as Chicago a week earlier- in the lower 30s and cold wind so my legs were a little cold and I figured my muscles were too. About a half mile into the run, I made a friend: Ben from Grand Rapids Michigan. Ben and I became fast friends and without him, I don’t know how well I would have done. We traded marathon stories, training methods (he talked here more than me, because I really don’t have much rhyme and reason), talked about our significant others, what we do for a living, I shared Ultra Jen’s stories, and told him how I came with Maria and she’s modest but always seems to place in a race. We talked about my accident on the way, and well, for the first 12 miles, we cruised at an 8:15 average with barely any notice of the distance. Then we hit a hill. It was the 3rd massive hill (but there were many rolling and graduals throughout). It took a lot out of me, for an 8:15 pace and we said goodbye, but I kept him in eye shot until about mile 15 where I caught up to him again but the chatting was cut down drastically and we were just running next to one another.Backing up, I put music on at mile 12 and as I crossed the half marathon checkpoint, my time was 1 hour and 48 minutes. With this time, if you calculate what I need for Boston, I only had 4 minutes to slow down in the second half. And how perfect, Justin Timberlake and Madonna’s 4 minutes song started playing on my ipod. I thought about using that as my race title, but the good ‘ole song of “Aint no one gonna break my stride aint nobody gonna hold me down, oh no I got to keep on moving” seemed to win out.4 minutes, all that I could think was Boston, Boston, Boston, Boston. A 1:47 was a PR for my half marathons (I’ve only officially run 2 so my marathon half times count as well). I could taste Boston, but I knew if I didn’t get it I still had to be happy for my time. Ben and I still ran near each other until about mile 20 but we were no longer talking. The course would go from road to bike path, and the path parts with the falling leaves was real beautiful, my favorite parts. Those were the parts I’d get little bursts of energy. Around mile 17 I saw Maria, as she was on the way back (about mile 19) heading to the finish. I know I was slowing down, I was having 8:40 miles which was still fine to qualify for Boston, if I could keep that up and maybe have at least one more 8:30 mile in me. But I just didn’t know how my body would react with the wall. There was a checkpoint at mile 19, where I had crossed it in 2 hours and 38 minutes, which meant I just had to pull an 8:45ish the rest of the way to qualify for Boston. That next mile was an 8:40. Then came the leg cramps. They were the kind that you think, maybe you should stretch them out and if you stepped wrong you probably would have BIG issues. So I figured, I just needed to keep moving, in a running manner, and take it easy to work the cramps out. At the same time, Ben stopped and started walking, and that’s the last I saw of Ben. With 4 miles left, I was obsessing over my time, I was running 9:45s now, and Boston was lost in sight. So, I put my watch on a different mode so I couldn’t see my time or splits. I tuned into my music and just kept on moving. Of course with one mile left, we had to go up our 4th and final larger hill. I don’t know if walking would have been faster, but I refused to do that. I just kept moving. The last .2 miles, I think took me 3 minutes, but I didn’t care. I crossed the finish in 3 hours and 47 minutes. I broke 4 hours by 13 minutes, state #13, and I PRed by 17 minutes. I didn’t get Boston, but how could I not be happy about that time. Boston is within reach now. And my watch read 26.55 miles…so technically, if the course was overshot (and I have heard complaints about it being longer), then I only have 3 more minutes to cut out before Boston. I still could get there with Jen (and Valerie).After I finished, Maria and I met up. She didn’t say anything about how she did, she was just excited for me. Then I notice, she is holding a Plaque. I said “Maria what’s that?” and she said “oh yeah I placed 3rd for women in the race.” WHAT!? Modest Maria was letting me go on about my finish and here herself, is my superstar! She also PRed, with a hamstring injury, at 3 hours and 12 minutes and took 3rd in the Women’s Division. Maria told me I should check out my statistics, it was a smaller race so she thought I might have placed well. These race results aren’t the cool kind that give you all the statistics, so I don’t know where I finished overall with the females, but I finished 10th for my age division and 224 out of 1005 runners overall.I kept moving, and as Ultra Jen told me to do (after the car accident) “Go kick 13s ass up and down that crap town” …I did just that.
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