Chicago Distance Classic

This weekend took me one step closer to the BOA Marathon in October. My wife and I went to the "Windy City" to run the Chicago Distance Classic with my sister Shelly. We were fortunate that the summer weather for this August weekend was nearly perfect. It was cool and in the low 60’s on race morning. There is just something about this city that you just have to love!

We came up on Friday evening and had a blast with Shelly and Joe. We had a great dinner and a good night out on the town. With very little sleep, we awoke on Saturday morning and headed downtown for the day. We stayed at the “W Hotel” on Adams - I have never experienced any place like this. Completely impressive, it has some of the most hip décor I have ever seen in any place that I have stayed.

We went over to the race expo and then walked over to the Navy Pier. We spent several hours here culminating in the “sail boat ride from hell”! Don’t know if I would suggest sailing on the Tall Sailing Ship of Chicago in a windstorm. I thought my wife was going to knock the Captain out, but we made it through somehow.

Sunday morning was great. The three of us arrived a bit early for the event in Grant Park. Not that I have ran hundreds of these races, but it neat to see how the different runners act on race morning. Some people have trained for months for this one event – you can see the focus they have. Some woke up the day before and decided to do the event the following day. You get a little of every type.

Julie and Shelly made a plan to meet me after the race then disappeared into the sea to 10,000 runners. I started toward the front of the pack and, in usual form, went out too fast. The course was flat, and on the way back went along the jogging trail along Lake Michigan.

This event was special. After I finished, I had a chance to watch a lot of the runners at about the 13-mile mark as they were finishing. If you run and have never done this, it’s really quite cool. All of those people who are running a first half marathon have the finish line in sight. It is neat to watch them as they see all of their hard work about to pay off. I caught a glimpse of Shelly and Julie as they approached the finish line. They didn’t look overly emotional, just like they wanted to finish. They did! It was a great experience. Julie was hooked after the race and wants to run more, Shelly – not so much.

After the event everybody was feeling great. We decided to walk down to Joe’s firehouse (remember that he is a diver/firefighter for the Chicago Fire Department). We spent some time there and then headed back home for St. Louis a little later in the day. Now begins the big mileage weeks of the training program. Forty-one miles this week and even more the following weeks. Fun time is definitely over!

If I could be like Mike!

Finally, I got up the nerve to send the email. You see, not too much makes me nervous, but this one was quite a leap.

During most of the last year and a half of my post-army “reintroduction to running”, I have been the proverbial “lone wolf”. Most of the time during the week, it’s just the treadmill and me. On the weekends, if I’m not racing, I hit the road and do the long runs all by my lonesome. This is one of the cool things about the sport, you can be on your own, or you can be part of a group – it’s your choice! I sort of find the solitude appealing; no cell phones ringing, no little boys tearing up things, and home improvement projects. Nope, it’s just the road and me.

One day, I was reading in the bible (Runner’s World) about the value of speed work. For my first marathon last year in Memphis, I didn’t even know what speed work was. But Doug 08’ is smarter than Doug 07’ – if you want to run faster, you have to train faster. Hence the evolution of speed work in my BOA marathon plan.

I call it “Speed Work Wednesday”. It’s the one workout each week I push myself perhaps farther than I should. I mix it up from 400 repeats, 800 repeats, to mile hard runs. My treadmill is smoking! My boys sit and watch me and remind me not to fall off. These workouts are killers, but although I haven’t taken home any trophies lately, I am feeling much stronger than ever before.

I thought to myself “if speed work works on my own, it must work really well with a group”, where better to find a group than the local running store – Toolen’s Running Start (this is where the Mike part comes in to play). Mike Toolen owns The Running Start. He is somewhat an icon in local running circles. I believe he is in his mid-sixties, smaller in stature, white hair, and you will see him EVERYWHERE you go for anything running related. I ran his “Top O’ The Morning” 5K this spring, he is the official timer for the lead pack of the St. Louis Marathon, I even saw him when I pulled in to the expo parking lot for the Memphis Marathon last year. He is everywhere! He is one of these guys you just know will be cool when you actually meet him.

Anyway, I sent Mike an email to see if he has any group speed works or runs that are sponsored by his store. He sent me a message back that they do on Tuesdays and that they are for runners of all levels. I’m in! The group meets tonight, but it is 100 degrees in St. Louis today with a heat index (whatever that is) of 110. So in spite of my high level of motivation, next Tuesday might be a better introduction. Finally, my chance to hang with real “runner friends” – hope I can be like Mike!

Chicago - Part I

I’m all jacked up on Mountain Dew! The first of my two Chicago visits will be this weekend, when my wife and I journey to the Windy City to run the Chicago Distance Classic with my little Sister Shelly. Shelly and Julie are going to do their own thing, but I, an experienced marathon veteran (yeah right), will treat it as the serious tune-up run that it is.

Shelly Peters, the event-planning powerhouse, has set our social agenda for Friday evening. Her last event ended in me wearing an unmanly-looking pirate costume and drinking beer from my built-in kegerator until all hours of the night. That was before I made the commitment to my second marathon. Who am I kidding, Friday night will more of the same.

Two schools of thought with my wife running this race: school A) I am proud of her for making a commitment to do this. School B) She is infringing on my man-space. She wears my special socks (my foot is about twice the size of hers), she takes my Ironman watch, and she even wears my cool cycling glasses. But strangely, I’m fine with all of that, I’m just glad we get to go somewhere for the weekend!
No serious goals for the run, just want to survive and not fall into the lake. Looking forward to this event for some time. It will be my forth half of the year so far, and will put me over the 250 mile market for my BOA marathon training that started June 9th!

When Lightning Strikes!

My 15-miler was going super strong! I can’t believe the confidence I am drawing from the fact that for this marathon – I am training exactly as I know I should be. I am using my head on the long runs. Planting water in the right spots. Not going out too fast or worrying about my pace. Knocking on wood again, it all seems like it is heading in the right direction. At least it seemed that way until I was about ten miles in to the run last Sunday.

I felt very happy that the sun was hiding behind the clouds for most of the run. Oh, I saw him peek out at me a couple of time on the way out to my 7.5 turn-around, but he was definitely showing me some mercy, maybe a bit too much mercy. About half way back in, it seemed like the sky was getting darker. The forecasters didn’t mention anything too eventful, but it was really getting dark.

I started to hear the distant rumblings of thunder over my Ipod. The sound kept getting louder and louder. It was at that time that the clouds started looking really strange. I was about three miles from home when I realized that I was about to run in to my first big electrical storm.

Here’s the thing about a strong summer storm while you are running: what do you do? I thought that most of my run was along wooded areas or trees – maybe they would catch the brunt of its fury! Not to be! About two miles from home, I passed a woman walking on the side of the road in front of her home. She said “those clouds really look bad!” I agreed and told her “looks like we are going to get wet”. Each moment became more and more serious. I could see the lightning increasing in intensity and getting closer. I had not prepared for this contingency. What was I going to do? Had I lived for forty-two years just to meet my maker at the hands of a bolt of lightning? I could only imagine what people would say; didn’t he know there would be a storm? He was doing what at what time in the morning? This had a lot of downside potential!

Just as I reached the top of Mt. Belleville all hell broke loose. It started to rain, the wind got very strong, and I could see lightning getting very close. Ironically, to take my mind off of the long runs, I had filled my Ipod with audio books. I was listening to Joel Osteen read his most reason book “Become a Better You!” This chapter was on the wonder of God’s creations. I wasn’t too impressed currently with his work in the severe storm department. I had to make a plan quick: I decided, as a runner, I would run really fast! After the painful decent from the Mount, I was running as if I was being chased by a pack of wild dogs. Funny thing about facing death – you feel no knee or joint pain what so ever. I kept running as the storm became more intense. I thought about laying down in a ditch or running into the woods – neither sounded to appealing. I just kept on going! Inspired by Joel, I started to pray, “Dear God, don’t let me get hit by lightning!” I also started to pray that my wife would hear the storm and come out and get me - that was a real long shot. I had about three quarters of a mile left and it had gotten really crazy. It was time to get in the ditch.

It was at that moment I saw two headlights through the driving rain. It was my wife Julie to the rescue! Doug and Coco were in the back seat telling me how they just saved my life! Coco, my soon-to-be four year old asked me “why are you running in the storm daddy?” I didn’t have a really good answer. As I put her floor mat over her seat before I sat down to absorb the sweat and rain, I closed the door and was extremely thankful. She turned the car around and we headed home through some of the most intense lightning I had ever seen – from inside or being out in it.

This was one of those crazy experiences that you really don’t take any really lessons from. When I headed out the door, it didn’t look remotely at all like rain. It just came for nowhere. I guessed I dodged another bullet on my way to Chicago, one I hope to never face again.

A day of Bad Choices!

Not as much humor these days in regards to the long runs. This weeks’ 14-miler in 75 degree heat was nothing to take too lightly. Knowing that I need to be more focused on my Chicago plan than ever before, making the right choices and sacrifices are critical. I have learned to live like a monk on Saturdays – the day before my long run.

So what was I thinking last week when I responded to my sister’s email? We don’t get to spend a lot of time together, so on the surface, getting the families to hang out in St. Louis over the weekend sounded like a good idea. Then she suggested we take the brewery tour.

If you have ever been to St. Louis for anything “touristy”, the Anheuser Busch brewery tour is a must-see! (Especially now before the InBev purchase goes through and they shutter all of the fun stuff). The tour has a bit of everything, but at the end you go to the hospitality room and you get free beer. I would be fine with that part alone – to hell with all of that walking.

So anyway, off to the brewery we go. I think we arrived about 2 PM. The hostess gave us our tickets and told us that our tour would start at 3:50 PM! I am looking at my boys thinking they will tear this place down by then. So we decided to go find a little bar/restaurant to kill some time. My soon to be four year old Cole was not in a good mood. He was tired and for some reason was in flip-flops (his Mother was in charge of wardrobe) – maybe not the best choice of footwear for a walking tour of a beer factory. To make matters worse, he found a razor in our master bathroom that morning and thought he would be like Dad and shave - never a good outcome for little boys. He had a half-inch cut right above his lip. You would have thought be lopped an arm off.

Off we go to find a bar. I had to carry Cole because he didn’t want to walk in flip-flops. He had a washcloth pressed to his lip that had stopped bleeding about four hours earlier. In this area of St. Louis, there is a bar on every corner, except the corners where we were. We ended up walking about four blocks just to end up back at a place that is adjacent to the brewery property. Carrying that little sack of potatoes was killing my legs (and he is the lighter of my two boys). So we decided to have a couple beers. A definite violation of my “day before the long run” policy. Time passed and we went back toward the brewery.

We started our tour and I carried Cole each step of the way. Finally at the end, more free beer at the hospitality room. Then it was off to dinner. Where did we go? Another great area of St. Louis – “The Hill”. For some reason, they made it my choice. And for some other reason, I drove right to “Ragazzi’s”, home of the “Fishbowl Beer” – another bad choice! What is a fishbowl beer you ask? It is a beer in a mug the size of a small fishbowl. You can barely pick it up! So after stuffing myself on pasta (carb loading could be considered a good choice I guess) and having a fishbowl, we headed back home. A bit tipsy, sore legs, and stuffed from dinner – I had about seven hours to recover before my run.

At 5:25 AM I sprang out of bed and headed toward my running stuff. Strangely, I felt pretty good. I was out the door by 5:45 AM and on my way. After my “camel plan” (doing the run with almost no water) last week nearly killed me, this time I was smarter. On Saturday morning, I hopped on my motorcycle and took plastic water bottles out and hid them along the route. A helpful hint here – if you are making marks in the rocks on the side of the road to remind you where you hid the little fellows, make sure you don’t leave your leg on the muffler of the motorcycle – it gets rather hot!

To make a long run story short – it was perhaps one of the strongest I have ever had. I found all of my hidden bottles in tact and clear - not yellow, and felt more confident than ever about my progress toward the BOA Marathon. Maybe I should just live my life the way I always do during this training program. Maybe it’s OK to make a few bad choices along the way!

No Dry Heat here!

Yea, but its dry heat! These words have never been uttered in regards to a summer in Southern Illinois. I’m not sure what geographical feature here lends itself to this super high humidity. We are hundreds of miles away from the ocean. No mountain ranges that I have ever seen (remember, Mt. Belleville isn’t really a mountain). Why then, can you walk out of your home for a long weekend run at 6 AM and feel like you are going for a swim? I guess I need to suck it up a bit!

This weekend’s 12 miler was a tough one. I ran it really slow, and finished in one piece. But, man – it was hot! I almost pulled a “Janet Jackson” and had a major wardrobe malfunction. I guess it could be quantified as more of an equipment failure. I started out the door with a plastic water bottle in my hand, and a “GelBot” bottle in my waistband bottle holder. If you have read my previous posts, I am an equipment guy. If it can be bought and can give me an advantage (even a perceived advantage) I likely own it.

I think I bought my waistband bottle holder about a year ago, nothing remarkable here. However, the bottle that cam in it was a bit on the small side, so I opted for one of my larger bicycle bottles. Here’s where it gets cool. They make these cycling bottles called “GelBots”. Some genius combined the usefulness of a water bottle with the added benefit of a gel dispenser. Stem all the way up – you get water. Stem half way up – you suck hard and get gel (Gu in my case). Sounds pretty cool? It is – when it works.

Okay, I have tried Gu. I like the vanilla bean Gu. My only problem here is that I really don’t know if the stuff works. I guess by virtue of my still being alive, it must. But could this bean one of those magic little pills they sell that they make you think it works, but that it really does nothing at all? Who knows! At some half a couple of weeks ago, I got a sample of Hammer Gel – it really looks cute, it is gel in the shape of a little hammer. I took it along this weekend, when I ripped off the hammer head, it tasted like the stuff from jelly donuts. I thought I should have put a few donuts on a stick and ate them when needed.

Anyway, back to the GelBot problem. When I left the house, I felt a little water on my back by the bottle holder. No big deal I thought, I use them on the treadmill and they are notorious leakers. So off I trot, one bottle in hand, the other on the belt. Did I mention it was hot? I started hitting on the throwaway bottle about two miles in to the run. Sort of like a booster rocket being jettisoned once I got into orbit. The problem here was after four miles when I threw booster rocket one away, I discovered that booster rocket two had only about an inch of fuel left! Can you say crisis? Let me redress my throwaway comment for all of you “Greenies” out there. I sinned and littered. I am sorry. Tonight when I go for a golf cart ride, I will find a piece of trash to repent for my sin. Sort of like a “carbon offset credit” for water bottles.

So here I am, four miles in to a twelve-mile loop, two slurps of water left, and an outside temperature of 85 degrees. Think cool thoughts! I thought about the worst-case scenario. WWMGD? (What would McGiver do?) There were some farmhouses on my route. But who would open their door to a sweaty 200 pounder at 7 AM? There were a couple of creeks and pounds along the way, but god only knows who has been swimming in that stuff. I decided rather to do the only thing I really could do – just keep going! And keep going I did. Mile after sweaty mile until finally the finish line of my front mailbox was it sight. I had made it – I was alive. Pardon the pun, but this could have been a real watershed moment along my path to Chicago! I battled the road and came out victorious! Next time I will go out with a better hydration plan and will leave the GelBot back home!

Out too fast!

So it would be…. As the lead pack and I approached the finish line, the race atmosphere turned electric. The crowds cheered with absolute excitement. The other runners looked at me as I stared back at them. The elites were wondering how this unknown had stayed with the pack for this long. As we rounded the final turn I looked up and could see the finish line ahead. The race announcer was nearly screaming our names as we neared the finish. Cameras flashed as I made my last dash leaning forward toward the line. The next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and it had happened – I woke up.

So it was only a dream, and a made up one at that, but if logistical effort alone could win the race, this one was mine. I ran my first of three “tune-up” half marathons on the road the Chicago over the weekend, this one was the “Joker’s Wild” half in St. Louis County.

To start with, who wants to run a race on the 5th of July? My 4th could not have been any lamer. We decided to spend the weekend at my wife’s family farm in the middle of no-where, Missouri to celebrate the holiday and my father-in-law’s 70th birthday. After the 117-mile drive on our nation’s Independence Day, we finally made it to the farm. Arriving via elephant back might have been faster. Me and my wife, my 14 year-old daughter’s teen attitude, my three and five year olds, and my 100-pound dog Tucker. All stuffed in my large SUV like a sausage from a cheap butcher. It seemed like we stopped every ten minutes. How can a five year old really pee every 30 minutes? Its like they have multiple bladders.

Here was my plan: Take it easy on the forth, get up at 3 AM, drive 75 miles back to St. Louis for the 6 AM start of the race. Everything pre-race worked like a charm. I sprang awake exactly at 3 AM. In the shower and out the door by 3:21 AM. After a coffee stop, I arrived at the race site by 5 AM. I checked in, got my chip, and proceed to people watch until the race started.

The gun sounded promptly at the revised 6:15 Am start time. Off I went on the two-loop, six and a half mile course. I had no real race strategy; I just wanted to see how I felt. I thought 2 hours flat would be a nice time for a summer run. I should have picked up on the warning sign as I finished my first mile at an all-too-quick (for me) pace of 7:47. You know what they say about going out too quick? I have done it nearly every time, normally with tragic results.

However, for this half, I did have a bit of stronger than normal motivation! I was a Clydesdale. Obviously, I did not turn into a horse, but rather than the 40-45 age group, I decided to enter the 200+ pound Clydesdale division. At 205 pounds, I legitimately qualify. In this smaller, 500 person race, just me and 17 other “fat boys” in our portly little division. Could this race be the first time I had a chance at an actual award? Time would tell.

So back to the race. I kept clicking off miles faster than I expected to run. Up and down the rolling hills I went – making the turn to finish lap one. Lap two felt like more of a struggle. Sort of like carrying a ton of bricks on my back while I ran on those little clogs like the people from Holland would wear. I was fading, and fading fast. Racers – fat and not so fat, were passing me like I was standing still. I entered the finish chute as the big red clock kept on adding the seconds. My finish time was 2:00:55, not my PR, but not my PW (personal worst) either (I think my PW was this year’s flying pig half in Cincinnati – 2:02 +/-, but this race was up and down a mountain – but a ton of fun).


So what did I learn about my progress toward Chicago? It seems I am running a lot of miles and not getting much better! I have started to make Wednesdays my “speed work” day, but I have not done enough to see the results. I need to learn that I need to start slower to run faster. It makes perfect sense to me. In next month’s Chicago Distance Classic (half), I am going to run a different type of race. I am going to focus on a slower pace for my first three miles, and then I will see how much I have in my tank. Maybe I should not race the clock, but rather choose to enjoy the event! I mean, think about it… a year from now (or even 15 minutes from now) is anyone really going to remember who won the Clydesdale Division in this half? I have my doubts! But I will remember that I finished 6th out of 17 in this group of gentle giants, dare I improve my standing in 2009?!?!?