Thursday, September 29, 2011 – 2nd Biannual ‘Bob Nelson’ Donut Run (on this day Bob will turn 67)
Thursday, October 6, 2011 – 2nd Biannual ‘Happy Birthday Matty’ Beer Mile (3 days after Matt Woods turns….32?)
[Note that these happen to be the most inappropriately attributed running events, as Bob is diabetic and Matt doesn’t drink.]
I lost my first toe nail!! (She hung on a while after Cowans Gap but finally succumbed). I feel like a part of my innocence has been lost; I’ve been launched into ultra runner adulthood.
I got to pee before the gun went off! Hooray! That’s right, in a portopotty, and with ample time to get to the starting line and mill around, see the wheelchair racers go off and take note of a dude wearing shorts bittier than Matty Woods’s (Matty was supposed to be running for PR as well, but he had to work (ie, terrorize young lifeguard girls)). At one point we were going to try to get a WUS team together for this race to see if we could upend some of the traditional DC road runner powerhouses like PR or Georgetown Running Company in the team competition, but I didn’t decide to race until last minute and no other WUSsies ended up running it — even Wardian didn’t show (something about trying to set a record for an indoor marathon that morning — why anyone would opt for an indoor marathon over the Twilight run is entirely beyond me). Twenty-five years running, the Rockville Rotary Twilight 8k has become Washington’s premier running event of the summer, a classic. The prize money isn’t huge ($350/250/200/175/150), but many of the region’s top runners come out for it at a time when there aren’t many other big races (both the men’s and women’s races this year were won by Ethiopians, see below) — and the whole running at night thing is pretty cool.
no apolo ohno poses yet.....
It’s rather nice to start a race comfortably, rather than a) having pissed your shorts (National Half Marathon, March), b) dashing across the Mall after the gun’s gone off (Race for the Cure 5k, June), or c) holding your bladder as tightly as you can for the first four miles because you’re determined not succumb to either a) or b) (Summerfest Rock ‘n Sole Half Marathon, July). And the race stayed comfortable the whole way. It was cool out for a July eve in DC, my bagel was sitting in my stomach nicely (it was hard to figure out what to eat before an 8:45pm race), my respiratory infection wasn’t giving me asthma despite the fact I forgot my inhaler, and it was nostalgic for me to return to a race I hadn’t run in, god, like 15 years. Yes, the last time I ran this race was in high school, running it with my brother Fred, my brother’s friend Josh Hoyle, and my friend Sarah Schwertner. It was bloody hot and when I sucked wind the whole way I discovered that all the girls I was running against in high school actually RAN over the summer (what a notion!) and beat me handily. But despite the cold shock of pain and failure, there was something idyllic about all the neighbors sitting on their front lawns playing peppy music on their boomboxes and spraying us with their garden hoses. And that there was a band playing and free beer at the end of the race that my brother snuck to me somehow which totally made those 5 hot wind-sucking miles entirely worth it to a 15-year old.
listening to live music is important for race recovery
I’ll admit it was a little sad to be there this time without any friends — I really can’t recall the last time I ran a race dead alone. In fact, I was pretty down at the beginning of the race, wondering why I had trekked all the way up there to run by myself and get my ass kicked by all these super speedy people. I was snot-rocketing all over the place and my nose was all snuffed up and I was drained from a hot day of intensive shopping (as long as I had to go to Rockville I crammed in a million errands along the Pike, including a trip to Racquet ‘n Jog sports, the best running store in the world — it still tickles me pink how they let me Mix the Box (as in buy a discounted box of Cliff Shot Bloks and put whatever different flavors I like — gotta love the little things in life) — but I think I lost a good 20 seconds off my time from the absolutely miserable trip to the Verizon store, where I almost dropped an F-bomb when they told me the $15 of minutes I’d bought for the pre-paid cell phone I bought merely for the purposes of having a doorbell expired after 60 days) — anyway, I digress….).
Truthfully, my legs felt like puppies let out after a long snowstorm. I kept furrowing my brow in minor confusion — why were they going so fast? In the opening mile I just picked female runners off one at a time (the cuter and more elaborate the running outfit, the more I enjoy passing them — I kept recalling Aaron’s hilarious impression of the Apolo Ohno speed skater starting positions he witnessed at his latest 4-miler). But I didn’t want to get carried away — 5 miles might seem awfully short to an ultra runner but it’s still a bloody long way to go at the 5:45ish pace I was clipping away at (I couldn’t help but see the big clocks at every mile — I wish I hadn’t, as I found it highly disconcerting to be going through so quick (at 3 miles I was in the 17:20s), making me feel like I was a ticking time bomb that was going to blow. But I had a big kick at the end, passing a bunch of guys and the 5th place woman to finish in the money. I still can’t quite figure out why I felt so good — I felt good even after the race, and dashed the mile or so back to my Volvo still feeling high. Maybe it was my new Mizuno racing flats I broke out — they are flashy and red!
not running any farther than I have to around that corner....
After the race I actually apologized to the 6th place woman I passed right at the end — it just seemed like a dick move to sit behind her most of the race, maybe 10 yards back, and then blow by her right at the finish. I tried to explain to her that I just don’t have enough current speed work or experience with short races under my belt to know what I have in me and had run a bit too conservatively perhaps because I couldn’t recall exactly what the threshold for pain is supposed to be in these short events. I really wasn’t out there to murder myself — I really just wanted to have a refreshing race where I felt good start to finish — after the dismal Highland Sky experience I’ve been on a quest to just try to feel good about running again, get a little pep and confidence back in the legs — they were so defeated and dejected after HS.
Here are the women’s results (ignore the Pace part — this is clearly incorrect on the website). The race was won by Ethiopian Tezeta Dengersa. So the girl who was 4th ahead of me, Lucinda Smith, I used to run against in high school (when she was Lucinda Hull — I was always faster than her and her twin sister Claudine (I don’t know who named these kids…)). But yeah, yeah, she’s all faster than me now, runs for Adidas and is in some US Elite Development program. Back in high school she and Claudine would use their formidable twin power on me, who always felt very abandoned, as everyone else was on these big teams with lots of fast girls and my school, B-CC, didn’t even have the 5 runners needed for a team and our second-best runner, my friend Mary Havell, quit XC to play field hockey. So I could run with the guys during practice, but on race day I was pretty much on my own against these swarms of girls in matching uniforms and hair bows (or matching faces in the case of Lucinda and Claudine).
Place Div/Tot Num Name Ag Hometown Gun T Net T Pace
===== ======== ===== ===================== == ================ ===== ===== =====
1 1/192 12 Tezeta Dengersa 31 Burtonsville MD 27:03 27:02 4:21
2 1/199 10 Amanda Rice 27 North Bethesda M 28:39 28:37 4:37
3 1/186 14 Lisa Thomas 35 Alexandria VA 28:47 28:45* 4:38
4 2/199 13 Lucinda Smith 29 Darnestown MD 28:49 28:48 4:39
5 2/192 2860 Martha Nelson 30 Washington DC 29:33 29:26 4:45
6 1/134 41 Elena Orlova 41 Gaithersburg VA 29:36 29:35* 4:46
7 3/199 38 Melissa Majumdar 26 Baltimore MD 30:03 30:00 4:50
8 4/199 25 Laurel Jefferson 25 Washington DC 30:02 30:01 4:50
9 5/199 26 Lindsey Jerdonek 26 Washington DC 30:15 30:13 4:52
10 1/86 641 Megan Digregorio 23 White Marsh MD 30:24 30:21 4:53
In the Team Competition, GRC won by 6 minutes. PR really suffered without their WUSsies Wardian, Matty, and Aaron.
1. GEORGETOWN RUNNING CO.
25:12 27:39 27:44 30:13 30:26 = 141:14
Paul Guevara M 24, Andy Sovonick M 25, Patrick Murphy M 27, Lindsey
Jerdonek F 26, Laura O’Hara F 31
2. FALLS ROAD BLUE
27:58 29:08 29:58 30:00 30:38 = 147:42
Patrick McLoughlin M 30, Kris Simms M 39, Louis Foudos M 24, Melissa
Majumdar F 26, Megan McNew F 32
3. FALLS ROAD WHITE
27:20 28:02 30:21 31:05 31:09 = 147:57
Brennan Feldhausen M 26, Seth Tibbitts M 30, Megan Digregorio F 23,
Joel Gladfelter M 32, Amy Horst F 31
4. POTOMAC RIVER RUNNING
25:32 29:38 31:19 31:25 32:14 = 150:08
Christopher Sloane M 28, Stephen Crago M 43, Peggy Yetman F 43, Bryan
Mikesh M 46, Mijiko Phelps F 41
5. CAPITAL AREA RUNNERS
30:01 30:15 30:37 30:45 31:13 = 152:51
Laurel Jefferson F 25, George Buckheit M 54, Sarah Bard F 27, Eugene
Holmes M 46, Brandon Hirsch M 41
And the men’s, won by another Ethiopian Abiyot Endale.
Place Div/Tot Num Name Ag Hometown Gun T Net T Pace
===== ======== ===== ===================== ==
1 1/149 1 Abiyot Endale 25 Bronx NY 23:47 23:47 4:48
2 1/85 5 Ricky Flynn 23 Lynchburg VA 24:21 24:19 4:54
3 2/149 59 Birhanualem Feysa 29 Silver Spring MD 24:25 24:24 4:55
4 1/173 4 Tariku Bokan 30 Herndon VA 24:36 24:35 4:57
5 2/173 6 David Berdan 30 Owings Mill MD 24:38 24:36 4:57
6 2/85 17 Paul Guevara 24 Alexandria VA 25:12 25:12 5:05
7 3/173 8 Wilson Komen 33 Washington DC 25:14 25:13 5:05
8 3/85 16 Paul Zwama 24 Fresno CA 25:15 25:15 5:05
9 4/85 62 Matthew Abernathy 22 College Park MD 25:27 25:26 5:08
10 3/149 58 Seife Geletu 29 Washington DC 25:28 25:27 5:08
I also noticed that Karsten Brown finished 26th in 26:53 — he’s in the VHTRC right?
After Sarah Wright and Scott Brewer got married on July 1, 2011, they enjoyed two nights at the Marriott Wardman in Woodley Park (just a stone’s throw from the WUS house!) and then embarked on a unique honeymoon…..in Milwaukee, WI…..along with their good friend Martha. I mean, who wouldn’t want me on their honeymoon?
Best friends from high school: me, the bride Sarah, and Rosie
Yes, Scott was a good man to consent to hand over his new bride to me for the week of Summerfest, a giant music festival held during the first week of July in Milwaukee, where Sarah and Scott currently abide. For the record, Sarah and I had bought tickets to the Black Keys concert long before Sarah and Scott had set a wedding date, so I didn’t feel too badly about hijacking Sarah. And you had to admit that the Black Keys concert could not to be missed — not only did we get Patrick and Dan (Patrick drummed so hard he looked like he was going to collapse at the end), but we got the ethereal Florence + the Machine as the opening act as well. [Cage the Elephant also came on first with some high energy performances of ‘Ain’t No Rest of the Wicked’ and ‘Shake Me Down’ — I’ve never seen a guy crowd surf so much] The (entirely sold out) crowd was so seduced by Ms. Florence and her swirling black cape that we all obligingly hopped like hypnotized bunnies when she requested it for her scorching finale of ‘Dog Days are Over.’ She could have asked us to hop on one foot and we would have. Pretty tough to follow up on that kind of voice, but the Black Keys would not be outshone. The finale of ‘Strange Times’ and ‘I Got Mine’ from the 2008 Attack and Release album was…..was…..man, I don’t know how to write about music any better than I know how to write about wine….if I tried I’d end up writing like some schmuck about oak resins and tints of moose bladder. Let’s just leave it that it was GOOD.
My iPhone flash was a little bright for Mr Sharpe
The next day we saw Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, another show we were very psyched about. Unfortunately, Katy Perry was occupying the Marcus Amphitheater, so Edward & co were on a stage that was way too small for the overflowing demand. In a sharp contrast to the very comfortable bleacher seat viewing Sarah and I had for the Black Keys (who needs real seats when you stand the whole concert anyway?), Sarah and I found it considerably more difficult to enjoy a show when we were smushed up against a fence, standing behind short people but who had flipped up their hat brims as some kind of fashion statement (or ‘Screw all you folk trying to see anything’ statement). Also, whereas smoking was prohibited at the semi-enclosed Marcus Ampitheater (although there was no shortage of pot — I think Sarah and I got second-hand highs), Sarah and I found ourselves with cigarette smoke being blown into our faces throughout the show. The fact that Sarah and I so enjoyed the show despite the less-than-desirable circumstances are an absolute testament to the charisma of Edward, Jane, & co — I think I’d keep tapping my foot to ‘Home’ even during dental surgery. As if to make it up to squished fans like Sarah and myself, Edward came over to our fence after the show to meet and greet. He was giving hugs to all the girls and high fives to the guys (although I declined both — I don’t care how good his music is — he was dripping in sweat and, well, I’m somewhat feline when it comes to things like that).
Rosie came up for the weekend and our Summerfest finale, which was my racing the Inaugural Summerfest Rock ‘n Sole Half Marathon. The race was being touted for its big prize money ($22,000 in total payouts), a scenic out-and-back over the Hoan Memorial Bridge, and starting and ending on the Summerfest grounds. Sign me up!
Unfortunately, for many the race was a complete disaster. As of today, the race director is reported to be ‘seriously considering refunds’ (MSNBC) due to poor organization and management during what turned out to be a sweltering day that forced the race to declare a Code Black and shut the course down early. I was fortunate to be at the front of the race, safely finishing before the closure and getting my water before they ran out (whereas I didn’t take a drop of water at the National half marathon in March, I loaded up on water and gatorade at each aid station, chugging down as much as I could — people were dropping like flies in the heat). My only complaint was that initially my name wasn’t in the initial posted results, making me wonder whether they would give me the $200 in prize money that had been promised to the 7th place finisher (I sent them some emails though and now I’m listed so hopefully the check will come — drinks on me next WUS!), and that there were no dropbags, so finding Sarah and Rosie at the end of the race without a cell phone in all those crowds was quite a challenge — nothing like a hot, tired runner wandering around asking where the Human Lost + Found is….. But I have to say, Sarah and Rosie were awesome spectators, and Sarah even jumped in and ran with me for a half mile or so. My (perennial) other problem was that I didn’t have time to pee before the race (the lines are always SO long for the portopotties) and after pissing myself at National and being in the portopotty when the gun went off at the Race for the Cure, I decided just to hold it and use one along the course — but that definitely added ~30 seconds or so. But coming out of the john, still pulling up my shorts (some people got a good semi-butt flash), my GU fell out and I had to run back and get it. Some very kind Midwestern dude picked it up and with a little wink as he handed it to me said, ‘I think you’ll be needing this.’ That dude totally made my race!
Rosie has much better ways for dealing with Milwaukee heat waves than running 13.1 miles
Post-script: Rosie & Sarah will be guest-appearing at the 2nd Annual Martha Birthday Beer Mile, Friday, April 27, 2012. They greatly enjoyed Bobby’s video and are looking forward to meeting the WUSsies.
This is important stuff. For example, notice the twitter box being neglected on the counter next to Kirstin. Not everyone got their own – Brian G. and Kerry are waiting for their turn too. Sorry, we can’t supply all of WUS with this fanfare.
