Racing For Wilma Rudolph

    I was looking for something fun to do the weekend following the Lock 4 XTERRA and noticed that there was a run going on near my house. So I was up bright and early Saturday morning, June 25, for a bike ride down to the Sango side of Clarksville for a 10K and 5K event called the Wilma Rudolph Road Race. Wilma Rudolph was an Olympic runner from Clarksville that was diagnosed with polio at age 4. At one point during her illness, she lost complete control of her left leg. It took 7 years of rehab and massage to get the control back. She then became a runner and 5 years later was in the 1956 Olympic games at the age of 16. She would go on to win three gold medals in the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy, becoming the first ever American woman to do so in track & field competition. She would later retire and become a school teacher and athletics coach. I'd say she is definitely worthy of having a race named after her. And I was excited to go do such a race in honor of someone who did such great things both on and off the track.

     My lack of running did not seem to effect my decision of which race to do. I was really in good enough shape to do the 5K, but I thought I could probably pace myself well and make the 10K. So I signed up for both. Yeah, sometimes I worry about myself. The 10K was first. It took place on roads I am very familiar with that I ride almost every day and are part of our Tuesday night group ride. The weather was partly cloudy with a slight breeze so it felt nice. There was a good turnout as well with 165 starters in the 10K.

10K start. That's me over to the right in the dark orange shirt.

There was a good turnout for the 10K

     I had a good run. I felt bad early on and was thinking that maybe riding over to the run was not such a good idea. Then I looked at my watch and saw my first half mile was run at a 6:00/mile pace and then I knew why I felt so bad. That pace is way more than I can hold. I backed down and finished my first mile in 6:54. I got settled in behind a lady that was a bit faster than me. She was strong up the hills and it was a good challenge for me to hold her pace. I felt good by the halfway point and wanted to go around her, but I was running much faster than I thought I should have been. My goal was to average an 8:00/mile, and I thought that was reaching a little far with my goals. My halfway time at the 5K point was 23:16, which is about as fast as my best 5K times. I really was expecting to die in the last 2 miles so I stayed put behind the lady and just tried to pace myself.

     I had been behind her about 3 miles when she said, "I'm not much to draft off of." I laughed because she was quite short and small compared to me. Then she turned her head toward me and yelled, "So why don't you just go around!" I was like whoa lady! I'm just running with you! I nicely said "I would if I could." Then I dropped back and gave her a little room. I guess she doesn't like people running close to her which makes me wonder why she entered a race with 165 people in it. I stayed behind her until 2 miles to go then I dusted her just because I could. I don't know if I felt bad about follwoing her or if I was mad that she yelled at me. Either way, it made me run faster. I had a strong finish, ending with a slight sprint. Only slight because I still had another race to go. My goal time was to finish under 50 minutes and I clocked a 46:37. I was very pleased and surprised with that. That landed me 26th place overall and 11th in the Men 25-29 age group.

The 10K winner Micah Tirop. He ran the 6.26 miles in 33:12. Holy crap!

Me finishing my 10K

     I had a 45-minute break between races to refuel and rest. Dina joined me on the line for the 5K. It was the first race she had entered since early December. I had no idea how I would feel in a second race. I have never done two running races in one day. I had already logged my longest run since the half marathon back in February, but I was lined up for more when 8:30am rolled around. There were 267 runners on the start line for the 5K. It was much of the same course that the 10K used, only skipping out on the flat section in the middle.

5K start

    The start was uphill and it was fast...and I had no legs! Man the first mile hurt, but then I got settled in and began to make up some ground, catching several people in the final mile. I was impressed with a young guy named Sam Parris. He was 10 years old and plugging away with a mile to go when I came by. I shouted a little encouragement and that was all he needed to pick up the pace. He matched me stride for stride for a good half mile, then he came around me and forced me to lift my pace! He would fade and I passed him back, again providing some encouragement. I thought he had fallen back until we hit the last 200 meters. I could hear little footsteps behind me and realized this kid still had a sprint left in him! He got close to me and it sounded like he was coming by. I dug hard with everything I had left, but still the sound got louder. I was surprised to see that it was a female that slipped by on my left, beating me by a step. Apparently, Claudia Wanner had a great sprint left too, passing both Sam and I in the final 100 meters. All three of us finish within 3 seconds.

Sam Parris and Claudia Wanner sprinting in to the finish. I am just out of the picture ahead of them.

    I took 29th overall in the 5K, good enough for 5th in my age group. My time was 22:58, a good 5K time for me even without doing a 10K before it. I averaged 7:27/mile for the 10K and 7:23/mile for the 5K. Both are very fast averages for me. They did a special combined category for the people that ran both the 10K and 5K. I took 5th out of the Men with a combined time of 1:09:25. Dale Brown topped the combination chart with a time of 1:01:47 for both events. Dina had a good run, finishing 5th in her age group.

 

     It was a good day of triathlon training for me. I had a great time. The plan was to ride home on the bike, but a nasty thunderstorm rolled in just after the finish of the run and I had to hitch a ride home with Dina.

XTERRA Lock 4 Blast Report

     After last year's fun and success racing the XTERRA off-road triathlon at Lock 4, I decided that I would do it again this year. The race in Gallatin, TN came a month earlier this year, giving me less preparation time. I started my swim and run training just 5 weeks before the race. Not exeactly a great plan, but I am limited on my pool resources and the bike wins over running any day when I have limited training time. I still felt my form was as good as last year, even with less preparation. The goal this year was the same as last: have fun and finish. I knew that if I put out the effort I would do well so there was no need in worrying about positions.

     It was a cloudy morning with storms dotting the radar. I checked the forecast just before leaving the house and saw a nice thunderstorm rolling right toward the race venue. It seemed it would arrive just after the start. I was worried about them stopping the race during the bike segment if there was a lot of lightning. With the chance of a shortened race, I knew I had to do a good swim or I would finish way, way back. I needed both of the bike laps to even get myself into contention. The storm front began to arrive just as we lined up in the water. There were some very mean-looking clouds and the wind really picked up, but the rain and lightning had not yet arrived.

The storm moves in over the lake

Swimmers ready for the start

     The swim was 880 yards (1/2 mile) in a triangular shape in the shallow Old Hickory Lake. The start was very fast, much faster than I expected. I had a hard time getting into a rhythm and was really hurting with my breathing the first half of the swim. It took me a good 500 yard to get settled into my pace and even then I was not using the form I had worked on the past few weeks. I swam with sloppy form and wasted a lot of energy. I did however, manage to hang onto the back of the main pack. There were a few guys ahead at the exit of the swim, then came a huge group and I held onto the back of that, being the last one to reach the shore. There was a good minute gap behind me to the next group of swimmers. The last few hundred yards of the swim were tough due to a headwind. I never thought the wind would effect swimming so much, but it actually caused current and made the return trip much more difficult. It was also frustrating to see people cutting inside the last buoy that we were supposed to go around. It cut off at least 30 seconds, maybe more. Nearly all of the first 15 swimmers cut it, as well as several from farther back. My swim time was about 40 seconds slower than last year. I was happy with that considering the current and the way I couldn't get into a rhythm.

And they're off!

One swimmer was pulled from the water very early

The only Pro in attendance, Craig Evans, was first out of the water

Me coming out of the water

     I had a decent transition. The swimming made me a bit dizzy and made putting on socks difficult. I thought I was going to fall over and knock all the bikes down like dominoes! I took the extra time to put on socks because I would rather have comfortable feet than save 10 seconds. When your feet hurt it changes the way the rest of your body feels, especially in the run portion. I was around 40th place exiting the water, but I gained a few spots in transition and then went into my element where I knew I could really eat up some time and positions. The trail was slick from rain the previous day, but it was still fast. I don't think Lock 4 ever really slows down much if you have the guts to push it. The rain was still holding off, but loud thunder could be heard as I navigated the singletrack.

Starting the bike section along the peninsula

Casey Fannin rides in 2nd place overall near the end of lap 1

Evans leads on the first lap of the bike portion of the race

Me nearing the end of lap 1 on the bike

     The bike portion was two laps of a 6-mile course. It was basically the first (east) side of the trails at Lock 4. I didn't have the noodly arms on the bike like I did last year. The swim did not seem to effect my bike performance as much this year and I was able to move myself to 4th overall after just one lap. I was feeling good and plugging away. The hardtail was awesome on the course, eating up the climbs and helping me rail the corners. I was hoping the rain would begin soon to help me gain even more time on the bike.

Fannin holding onto 2nd overall early in lap 2

Matt Robbins held 3rd overall at the start of lap 2

I was up to 4th here on the jeep road climb, just over 1:10 behind 3rd

Me coming up the hill out of the Sinkhole Trail on lap 2

I pushed very hard on the bike

     Then the rain came. And it came hard. I was maybe 2 miles into my second lap when it hit and it poured the rest of the bike segment. There was several inches of water standing in the trail in most places. I was loving it because despite the way the trail looked, traction was still good and there was really no need to back off in most of the sections. I made up good time, moving into 2nd place with 2 miles still to ride. The clouds really made it seem like a night ride through a few sections as it was super dark.

A few riders on a now muddy bike course

It got really dark in the woods...

...then it got muddy.

     I came off the bike in 2nd. My bike time was slower than last year due to the mud, but I only dropped a minute to Craig Evans, who was out front. And that time included both transitions where I know he was much faster since he does this all the time and is a Pro after all. Not to mention the amount of traffic I went through that first lap. Last year he passed me with .5 mile to go in my first run lap. I was determined to not get lapped this year. I also wanted to hang on to a top 3 overall as that is the overall podium and the money positions.

     The rain was still coming down as I began the run. The course was two 2.1-mile loops on the west side of the park. It's a challenging run with several short hills and some really steep rollers. The run opens with a big pavement climb that really hurt me. I found my rhythm though and sloshed through the first lap. The rain stopped as I exited the woods for the first time. Two guys were on me as I ended lap 1. They passed by me while we were still on the peninsula, dropping me to 4th. I tried to hang with them, but they were too fast. Evans and I passed at the same spot as last year, only this time I was going out on my second lap instead of ending my first.

Me running up the paved climb on lap 1

Going into the woods on lap 1 of the run

Scott McConnell coming to the end of the bike segment

McConnell goes out for his first lap of the run course

Me starting lap 2 of the run

Morgan Marable on his first run lap

     I had a good second lap and held 4th place to the finish. I was pleased to have no cramps and finish strong. My run time was 4:35 faster than last year, even with all the mud. I took 4th overall and won the 25-29 age group. It was a great time and I can't wait to do another one! Results are posted here if you want to check them out.

The sprint for 2nd overall between Robbins and Fannin

Scott finishing his first run lap

Me coming up the hill to the finish

The Men 25-29 podium. Too bad only two of us showed up for the awards. For the first time this season I stood on the top step of the podium.

Breaking the News

     I've spent the past month taking a break from racing. I spent most of the time preparing for the triathlons I plan to do this summer. It was time to get in the pool for some swimming and back out on the trails on foot. I've had some good rides lately. Even drafted some farm equipment home one night for about 10 miles. Not exactly safe, but fun nonetheless!

Drafting is fun...even behind disking blades

Riding with Shannon

     My runs have gone well as my hip pain from earlier in the year is long gone. I had to start swimming earlier this year since my first tri will be a month earlier than last year. Started off my training 5 weeks before the Lock 4 XTERRA by swimming in my cold and still green pool. I don't have a wetsuit, but the Under Armour thermal base layers worked well after the intial shock of submerging in frigid waters.

Swimming in the green lagoon that was my pool in late-May

GPS view of my pool swim. Yeah, I'm liking this GPS thing a little too much.

     My training has not been as structured the past few weeks, mostly due to being super busy. It's a good kind of busy though. Shannon and I have decided to get married. And we are doing it this August. So preparation is underway and actually is nearing completion. We will be getting married here in Tennessee. Shannon's parents live up in Elkhart, IN and she has more relatives in South Haven, MI. We went up to visit on Memorial Day weekend to break the news to the folks. It was my first trip to northern Indiana and Michigan.

Here's a few of our engagement pics

     I didn't take a bike, but I did have running shoes and was able to make good use of them. Shannon, Amber and I did a 5K in Elkhart one morning. I didn't do it for time. I wanted to run it with Shannon since it was her first one and we have never raced together. She did great, holding a faster pace than we had been running in our runs at home. Shannon wound up 3rd in her age group with a time of 32:13. Amber was a just over a minute back for 6th in her age group with a time of 33:15. My time was the same as Shannon's and that was still good enough for 4th in the Men 25-29. After the 5K, we went up to South Haven to spend the rest of the weekend. I got in a 4 mile run one night and even a short swim in the chilly waters of Lake Michigan on Memorial Day before we headed home. We got to have a nice dinner with the whole family and even watch a short parade in South Haven. The news went over well and everyone is excited for our big day in August. We have already found a house to rent and are in the process of moving things in.

Hanging out at the beach alongside Lake Michigan

South Haven Memorial Day Parade

Mmmm! Banana split from Sherman's in South Haven.

     Lately, I've been helping Keith and Misty out a lot with house-sitting and taking care of their dogs. It's always fun to hang out with the animals. And Keith has a Wii so I had a lot of fun with that too.

Lucy!

The grouch that is Oscar.

And the evil cat Vivian

    

     I returned to racing June 19 with the XTERRA Lock 4 Blast in Gallatin, TN. Look for more info on how that race went in my next blog. Thanks for reading!

    

The Warrior Inside

     After a few weeks of crit. racing, it was time to return to the dirt following Speed Week. My plan was to spend the weekend in the Chattanooga area and catch the SERC race at the Ocoee Whitewater Center near Ducktown, TN. It's one of my favorite courses. And with the exception of one year, I have always done well there.

    I have been eyeing different types of events over the past few months. Just things to mix up training and racing. I enjoy running, so I added the half marathon and 5Ks to my regimen toward the end of last season. One series I was interested in was the Warrior Dash races. They are 5K races, mostly off-road. The course is normally very challenging and features 10-12 obstacles. The obstacles can be anything from climbing walls, to swimming, to mud crawling under barbed wire. It just so happened that there was a Warrior Dash event going on in Mountain City, GA the same weekend as the Ducktown SERC. So I signed up for the Saturday races at the Dash and planned for a double weekend of racing.

     The Dash features a ton of people so they start waves of 500 every 30 minutes. They combine all the times to calculate results. There was racing both Saturday and Sunday, with seperate awards for each day. I had hoped to pre-ride the SERC course on the drive over to Mountain City, but there was quite a bit of rainfall at the end of the week and Saturday morning, so I chose to go for a road ride instead since I had my road bike with me just in case this sort of thing came up. I rode some cool roads with nice climbs around the Cleveland, TN area before we made the drive to Mountain City.

     Dina was signed up for Warrior Dash as well. We got to the tiny town of Mountain City with plenty of time to hop on the bus to be shuttled to the race location. I'm pretty sure that was the most people this town has ever seen at one time. The bus ride was short, but scenic. They had the seats covered with plastic in preparation to bring back a bunch of muddy warriors.

Chick-fil-A welcomed the racers

    I did a 20 minute warm-up and then lined up 25 minutes before my start to ensure that I got a front row starting position. You could only see half the course and obstacles. It looked flat from our point of view, but I had heard there was a difficult climb along the back of the course. The obstacles we could see in the spectator area were a run through water, a junkyard, a wall climb, cargo net, mud crawl, and leap over fire. I knew there were a lot more obstacles. They listed a tentative course map online so I had a good idea of what obstacles awaited, but had no idea where they were located. It was packed with people around the registration area. Many raced in costumes.

Tons of people gathered around the registration tent and stage. You can see the climbing wall in the background.

One of many costumes 

Avatar!

One of the waves set to start

A start of one of the waves

   I secured my front row start spot and was pumped to get it going. They sent us off with a burst of flames from the banner overhead. I stayed in the top 10 early on as we ran the first mile on the road before the obstacles began. I paced myself well and never really lost much time. One guy had a 20 sec lead when we got to the first obstacle, which was supposed to be waist deep water that we were to run through. With all the rain this week, the water was up to my neck, so it turned into a swim. I hit the water in 4th place and immediately passed one guy. The swim took about 4 minutes and my traithlon training from last year was still paying off (even though I haven't swam since September). I moved into 2nd before we reached land. The next section was muddy from all the water dripping off the runners. I fell and lost a spot to 3rd as we entered the junkyard. The junkyard was a bunch of cars we had to go through or over. In between the cars were tires so you had to high step all the way through. I held my third spot through the junkyard and through the next obstacle, which was an over and under. You went over 5 ft high wooden barricades, then under barbed wire that was about 2 ft off the ground. The barricades and barbed wire alternated.

Me on the start

Runners attack the tires as they enter the junkyard

Me falling at the tires

Junkyard madness

     Then there was a short run to the climbing wall. I was hurting so bad after the first three obstacles! The run gave me a chance to recover. Suprisingly, I didn't lose any ground to the two ahead of me and hit the wall in the lead group of 4. I went up and over the 15 ft. wall fairly easily.

The wall

Backside of the wall

Me (in the grey) going up the wall

Leaders of my wave hitting the wall. I was 3rd at this point.

    Next up was an uphill run through tires. I moved to 2nd by the top of the hill and settled into the part of the course that couldn't be seen from the spectator area. I heard there was an uphill so I was really trying to pace myself. A climb over a cargo net was next, then the course went to singletrack trail and went sharply uphill. The terrain was brutal. It was steep, off-camber, and covered with fallen trees for you to hop over. My running legs kicked in and I settled into a good pace, catching and passing the leader. Once I passed him, I lit it up the rest of the climb, trying to open a gap in case the next few obstacles were difficult for me. There was a nasty descent that had horizontal cargo net along the way. I just dove into that and barrel rolled across it.

I moved up to 2nd here in the tires

     The next obstacle was a crawl on hands and knees through a dark tunnel. Midway through the tunnel there was a nice support brace hanging down that I'm sure caused a lot of bumps on heads before the day was out. After that was a long uphill run through mud. There was water flowing down the trail. I kept the hammer down and by the top of the climb, there was nobody in sight. Another descent awaited before a huge slip-n-slide down the hill. It was by far the most fun obstacle. Straight after the slide was crawling under barbed wire through mud and water. I was way too slow here. It was followed immediately by another jaunt into the water to cross logs.

Me in the mud

Mud crawl

Mud video clip

     A leap over burning logs was the final obstacle before the finish. My time was 22:20, which is one of my best 5K times ever. I won my wave by almost 2 minutes. When the results were tabulated, I walked away 18th in the 25-29 class and 62nd overall out of more than 8000 participants.

The winner of Dina's wave, who had one of the best times of the day

The leap over the flames

    Dina was next to go. We started in different waves so we could watch each other. She was not quite as aggressive as me, but she did very well and attacked the obstacles. She ended up 90th in the 20-24 women and 580th overall. This event was so fun and I can't wait to do another one! I am already signed up for the Warrior Dash event in Manchester, TN in September. We got some cool schwag. You got a T-shirt and a warrior hat at packet pick-up, then every finisher got a medal.

Dina runs into the junkyard

Dina chose to go through the first car

Dina runs through the tires and junkyard

Me in my warrior helmet after the race

     We got some more rain overnight and the next day I decided to skip the SERC. I only had my new bike and really didn't want to destroy it. The last time I raced Ducktown in the rain I had to buy new wheels and brakes. Can't afford that now. Since I had the road bike with me, I decided to stop by McMinnville, TN on the way home and race the Highland Rim Classic Crit. It was cold and windy with ominous looking clouds overhead. The course for this crit. changes every few years. This year it was around the local high school. The course is almost pancake flat, but open and susceptible to the howling wind. Our race was later in the day, so Shannon had time to drive down from Clarksville and watch me race. She brought her sister, Amber, who is in town from Utah while she is on summer break at BYU. Shannon also brought along one of the kids that she lives with. Little Emily ran around before the race wearing my warrior helmet.

     The Pro/1/2 race had a decent number of riders and it was a good race. The wind split things to pieces from the beginning. I had good legs and brigded to a break early on. We didn't stay away for even a full lap, but it was cool to be there. I was comfortable with the pace, but got shuffled back as counterattacks went over and over. Then the race blew to pieces and I found myself in the third group. I tried to bridge to the group ahead but the wind tore me apart and I never made it. Next thing I know, I'm in no man's land just 15 minutes into the race and then lapped at 30 minutes. I was so mad to have let the race slip away when I felt so good. My time trialing ability is so pitiful and it keeps me from being able to bridge those gaps. It's probably a good thing that I never get into breaks because I probably couldn't hang in them for more than a few laps.

The course went around Warren County High School

     I got into the main group once I was lapped and had no difficulty staying with them. The finish was not very fast as everyone was tired. I was so disappointed that I couldn't participate in the sprint. I ended up finishing a lap down in 26th. It was disappointing, but at least I got to race and got in a great workout.

    I was scheduled to race a pair of crits in Huntsville the following weekend, but I was sick and had to skip out in order to recover. More coming on my season thus far...