Goofy Challenge Race Report

So it has been a week since the Goofy Challenge and this gives me enough distance for a proper race report.

Preface: The Goofy Challenge is one of those things that fundamentally appeals to me as an athlete---the opportunity to do something really hard and test your limits. Ok, and the hardware is pretty excellent. When I discovered that a conference in Orlando coincided with the Disney Marathon, I decided to plunk down the (serious) cash and put my hat in the ring.

Arrangements and Expo: Arrived on Friday around noon (leaving Chicago in snow that threatened to cancel flights out). Airplane was filled with people flying in for the Marathon---which made it all very fun. I'm not a Disney guy and I was not coming in to 'do' the Disney thing with my family---I was going to a meeting at the Swan. So landing at Orlando is all well and good, but trying to find the 'Disney Magical Express' bus was so frustrating that I very nearly rented a car. Someone needs to explain why a 'reservation' is necessary since the buses run all the time.

Arrived at the hotel checked in and realized the meeting I needed to attend did not start for another two hours (I got out of Chicago on an earlier flight) so decided to go right to the Expo to pick up the packets. Packet pickup was pretty easy, but the Expo was a NIGHTMARE. I may have my gripes about Chicago races, but we can do an expo. For all of Disney's space, they had the expo crammed into the tiny 'Jostens' Center' which could in no way accommodate the participants. I had credit card in hand, ready to be suckered by some new running gear, but got so frustrated in the herd that I ended up spending no money. Good for me, but I felt bad for exhibitors. Tried it again on Saturday and it was just as bad.

1/2 Marathon: I got up at 2:30 to get on the bus at 3:00 and was at race location by 3:30am. Would have been nice if the hotel had posted something indicating that they were serving little lunch boxes at 2:30am, not knowing, I packed along bagels, apples, and peanut butter since all indications were that there was going to be no food available in the morning. Secret knowledge, I guess you have to ask... It was sleeting and colder than ever recorded for that date in Orlando, and fortunately I had a coat, hat, and gloves along from Chicago. Got to the race site, bought a cup of coffee and huddled in a little tent with a couple dozen folks for an hour before the long march to the race start---Disney serves Breakfast at something called the Race Retreat---added charge and a bit silly, but if I had known it was going to be this cold, I would have happily paid for breakfast just to sit in the tent. Worked OK, there were tents for post-race exhibitors and a bunch of us squatted in them to stay out of the wind. Bag CHECK at 4:30am was seamless and for the FIRST TIME in my running career, I stripped a bag liner out of a trashcan and made one of those trashbag ponchos. Never understood it until I hit a sleeting, 30-degree race morning in Orlando.

Corral A for the start, great folks, lots of energy. My strategy was to try to run 8:00 miles for the whole event (half and full). Gun went off and I was amazed at how many people were crammed onto a relatively small course. Simply could not get above an 8:15 mile from my position for the first two miles----should have started closer to the front of the corral---meaning that I had to really pick it up during the succeeding miles so that I hit the overall pace. Also, foolishly had not hit the potty late enough and had a full bladder at the start. Lost some good seconds around mile 3 trying to figure out which side of a portapotty had the door. A mile later, there were good woods alongside the course (and it was dark), so in retrospect, I would have done better to just wait and hit the bushes like so many of my colleagues. Even with the pit stop, I maintained a good pace, did a fair bit of drafting off of some taller folks along the way, and generally felt relaxed. Finished just a little faster than my planned pace and felt that I still had a LOT in the tank. A lot of the 1/2 was out on the roads around Disney with very little in the parks themselves, not too impressive. The event also takes place in the dark---for those who run reasonably fast (and I was NOT running very fast by my standards), the WHOLE event takes place in the dark. All in all, not too exciting as far as courses go.

After the event it started raining even harder and was FREEZING. Got into the bag check area with no line and...of course...the guy could not find my bag. Can hardly blame him, they require us to use identical bags so they really do all look alike, but I had little patience for this. Finally told him to forget it, walked to a different person and set her to work. All in all, 25 minutes to find my bag. Needless to say, I 'decorated' my bag a bit for Sunday morning so that it was more easily noticed---and I was in and out of bag check the next day in 3 minutes.

Got on the bus without incident, was back at the hotel, showered, and ready for my 9am meeting by 8:30am. I'm sure the meeting organizers were appalled at the amount I ate during the day---easily packed way 1000 calories in eggs and bagels alone.

Marathon: Lather, rinse, repeat in terms of wakeup. Had the same breakfast as the day before, but forgot to grab a power bar on my way out, which I realized later was more critical than I expected. Had the system down on day 2 so got to the race site, got coffee, trash bag, and was squatting in a tent in record time. Walk to the start was without incident---very much benefiting from a second day of an event. Following Nate's lead, I have always taken a squeeze bottle with a sports drink to get me through the early miles. For this, I took two bottles, figuring I would drink one in the early miles and then nurse another. Here's the weird: this is a pretty nice crowd, but I set down one of my bottles for a few minutes, did not move, and it was GONE. Seriously--I looked everywhere, thinking it got kicked and rolled away, nope. GONE. Did someone actually swipe my sports drink? Anyway, was already thinking that I was not going to carry both, so no loss.

Start was again a clusterf***. COULD NOT get above 8:15 miles---and the 3:30 pace group was having the same problem. Hung with them for the first three miles when the leader clearly decided to make up the time and dropped them down into 7:40 pace which I decided was going to be unwise. Decided instead to try to pick up by 5 seconds per mile and see if I could be on or a little ahead of pace by the half. All went well, knocking off a few seconds per mile, not stopping for any of the water stops, taking gels every five miles. Finally killed the sports drink entirely at mile 15. Around 15, I realized that the lack of power bar was going to be an issue---could feel myself getting hungry. Ate half a banana (why hand out whole ones BTW?). Watched some guy around mile 19 eat a mouthful of Vaseline (really!). Felt GREAT. Around mile 20 realized that I was a little off pace and decided not to worry about it, figuring I would end up coming in at 3:30:40 or so. Ended up chatting with someone I had been running with the whole way around 21 who said he was pretty much finished and was going to have to drop back, I remember thinking, nope, I'm good.

Then mile 23 hit. Seriously hit me hard. Had been losing a few seconds per mile in 21 and 22, but nothing major and not worried about it. Mile 23 hit and the tired legs clobbered me. Mile 23 was around 9:15 and I settled in for 3 miles of pain. Took two gels to help get over the bonk, which allowed me to find a 9:00 for the last two miles, but not a lot of help---I was TIRED and I know I looked it. It was still freezing cold (I could see my breath), but I stripped off the throwaway shirt that I was (still) wearing at Mile 24 and hunkered down. Those last three miles are pretty good---running along a boardwalk and into Epcot---there are a lot of people cheering which makes up for the pain. Finished, collected the hardware, and was on a bus back to the hotel, tired, but not as sore as I would have expected. Overall, the 3:34:51 was VERY satisfying and the it was more of a bonk than muscle pain that kept me from the goal.

Overall: On the one hand, I actually think it was one of the most poorly organized races ever. I am clearly spoiled, because Chicago has such high quality events and it is easy to think that this should be the norm---but for the price, this was not very impressive. Even things like transportation which should be Disney specialties were not done well. That said, now that I have done 'The Goofy' once, I want to know what I could do---I think I could have run that half faster without impacting the full; I think that running a 22m training run would have made the critical difference for staying strong for the full. So I want to try it again, but only if someone else was going or if I happened to be there again. I would absolutely not go out of my way for it. Be nice if someone built a non-Disney back-to-back similar to the Goofy. Rock-n-roll organizers, this is just screaming for you to start something like this in a late spring time slot. I will travel for your races.

I did have fun being in a hotel full of runners (and scientists--for my meeting)---so I am inclined to go to a destination event and stay in the official hotel. Never would have realized that without an event like this.

Goofy Challenge 2010

I am going to post something longer tomorrow, but for the moment, I thought I would give you what Disney will not: a file to compare yourself against the other Goofy Challenge 2010 racers.

http://home.uchicago.edu/~mchristian/goofy_placement.xls

I did overall and gender placement, but for now, you will need to do your own work to get the gender totals.

For those of you reading this, it was good running with you for what must will likely be the coldest Goofy Challenge ever. Hope to see you all at 5:40am sometime in the future.

CW-X Stabilyx Tights

OK, I am totally a gear-hound, and bigger a sucker for a performance promise of clothing given those crazy suits the Olympic swimmers wore. I'm also a tights guy---I have some running pants that don't cling and can't figure out why anyone running faster than a 9-minute mile wants loose-fitting pants. That's my disclosure statement.

That said, with recession in the air, I have been trying to keep expenses to a minimum and I have a couple pairs of tights I love, so I was not in any hurry to buy another pair. Nevertheless, the piece on performance clothing in Running Times got me fixated on a pair of CW-X Conditioning Wear Stabilyx Tights and Linus and I stopped over at Fleet Feet after a visit to the Nature Museum. A hundred bucks later, I was the proud owner of tights that had a lot of promise.

First, they don't really make my size, I'm in that 6', 175 range which is a gray area by CW-X standards.



Probably too big for medium, but I should be at about 165 so I figured that if the tights work as they should, maybe I would be better able to drop that 10 lbs of beer and ice cream.

Second, they don't really give instructions on where your knee should end up to give you the best support. Especially for those of us in the gray area, it seems like we should make some of those adjustments to get optimal fit. I just guessed that the 'web' should criss-cross around the knee leaving the knee more free to move.

Those are the little gripes.

Took them out on a 12-miler today in about 28F. Holy crap, they were amazing. Negative split the 12 miles, running 8:16 for the first six and ending up with an average of 8:12/mile for the whole distance. Very comfortable throughout, and notable because I have been nursing a variety of grumpy muscles and joints for the past few months that usually leaves something sore after a long run. Today, nothing.

Day was cold, hands ended up numb running into the wind, but with the wind at my back they were ok. The CW-X tights did not change the fact that I get crazy hungry every time I cross the 10-mile mark.

Speaking of which, we runners in Chicago have a choice: hydrate properly and water the lawn or dehydrate. Yep, no bathrooms from about October to May in Chicago's parks. Shared a knowing look with a fellow runner as he left his deposit on one of the overpasses. We have all been there. Lately I opt for the dehydration route. That's another story.

Training for Peak Performance: Week 1

Had a lousy January in general. Work got in the way of exercise and the intense cold and snow beat me down which meant that I was coming into the first of a 14-week training program for the the mini-marathon colder than I wanted. I am also looking down the barrel of the Shamrock Shuffle with about 8 weeks to play. Sad because I have A-Corral qualification this year and really looked to put in an amazing time. I will probably still PR if no injuries, but had hoped to have a better base ready.

Week 1 also had its glitches. Had my gear at work and never made it out on Monday which meant I missed the first day. Day 2 was an 8-miler which ended with declining mile splits and a sore hamstring and ITB. Took Weds off (should have been hills) to make sure that neither turned into a thing. Hit the 3 on Thurs fine, Friday was insane at work and missed that 8 but picked it up on Sat. Should have had a day between the 8 and a Sunday 10, so I was not really ready and ended up bailing at 8 on Sunday with twinges in the hamstring.

I think the key in this program is to be intensely aware of lingering hamstring issues---they have been nagging since mid-November and I need to find a series of stretches that really treats the deeper issues. At the same time, this is precisely the same training regimen I did last year at this time and it seems SO much easier this time. Like so many good Jack-Daniels-inspired routines, it cycles between longer and shorter weeks and week 2 is much lighter.

Ran North along the path yesterday and South today. Jackson Harbor is looking spectacular, covered with ice and snow. I am running these days with the iPhone and I have a nice, rugged camera precisely for these occasions, but (a) I can barely remember to wear decent running specs, much less remember a camera and (b) the little iPhone case is nice, but too cumbersome to pull the phone out with cold hands and (c) I just don't like stopping on a run. I think this is why I am not a super social runner. That said, lifted with KO yesterday after the run and remembered again just how quickly the time goes by when you workout with a friend. The run goes by awfully quickly with Gareth Emery, especially the soaring female vocals that run through episode 71...so I don't feel like I am missing human company all that much.

Heading toward 70.3

Looking back over 2008, I did not master all of my goals, but I raised the bar for myself in significant ways. Spent the 1^st planning my 2009 season and looking beyond. Two key goals: Boston and Ironman by 2012. Training plans for 2009 have to keep those in focus, with the idea that I might just be able to hit Boston this year and I need to get a couple 70.3s under my belt. So two key events with a third in the wings: Indy's Mini-Marathon (trying to get a better spot for Chicago Marathon) and Whirlpool 70.3. Planning to run Chicago Marathon as well to capitalize on the fitness from the 70.3; planning to have the training in place to push for a Boston qualifier, but I don't want Chicago to be a key race---did that this year and the training just bored me in the end.

So here are a couple key markers that I have laid out at this point. 14 week plan to the Mini Marathon which overlaps at week 9 with the 20 week plan leading to the 70.3 which gives me time to add two 20+ mile runs after the 70.3 before Chicago and come what may. Finish working on all of this over the weekend. Pretty sure I have my base worked out up to March at this point, but need to fill in a couple spots and make sure it is realistic, given family, work, etc.

Runnersworld Update

If you had a site with 185k topics in your forums and more than 3.13M posts, you might feel pretty good. You would feel especially good if those thousands of regular users have figured out how to update their avatars and append signature lines to their posts, despite a hopelessly non-intuitive interface with limited possibilities, meaning that they were reasonably tech savvy crowd. Add to this that the site adds tremendous value to your print magazine, increases loyalty to that brand, and provides a prime platform for additional advertising revenues. In planning an update, what would you do?

If you are Runnersworld.com, not much. Don't get me wrong, on the surface they seem to have been busy: rebranding the community as 'the loop' and claiming that "The world's best running web site now has the world's best online community." Apparently the world's best online community includes user blogs, photo sharing, enhanced profiles, internal messaging. On the surface, they seem ready to have jumped into web 2.0 with this update; instead, they seem to have stumbled backwards into web 1.0.

No time tonight to run through a comprehensive strategy for Runnersworld but here are a couple thoughts:

First, take a look at profiles on Facebook, My Space, Linkedin or even Blogger. The new RW interface is better than it was, but what an opportunity lost. You have a community looking for friends, running partners, competitors---many of these folks would abandon their Facebook sites if they could do similar things on RW with people who share their hobbies. Look at some of the forum users---I have seen people with upwards of 30k posts! These people are living on the site.

That said, if you don't want to be in the profile business, that's cool too. Use Facebook Connect or OpenID. Or keep the same profile setup you have, but include places for your community members to link to their other profiles so that they can connect on that level. Or make it simple but relevant: shoe model and size, favorite running gear, link to a 'favorite route' map. Never create another vanilla profile page—we all have enough of those already.

Second, if you are going to add blogs to your community site, plan to consolidate your industry. There are thousands of runners' blogs out there, a good portion of those bloggers are RW community members. If you are going to run blogs on the community site, you want to create a situation where people are likely to move their blogs over. You might want to think about an import function that works with the major blog engines, you might want to ensure that people can skin the blogs, add links, the whole works. We are not talking about a group trying to monetize here---almost every one of the running blogs I read are just enhanced training logs (like this one). You have most of the interface already, but you need a little something to get us to move off of blogger.

Again, you may not want to be in the blog business, but then why add it? Go back to point one and give us places to connect to our blogs. A better use of resources would be to let us add feeds from our external blogs to the site so that the community discussions are informed by the broader realm of discussions.

Third, do we really need another email substitute? Better to do status updates (ala twitter/facebook) or wall posts (facebook). Look at how your people are using the forums…there are whole topics devoted to people updating their status before and after their workouts.

Finally, INTEGRATE. RW's training log is not the best on the market, but it is pretty good and many of the people in your community are also using it. Why integrate the training log into the community so that people could easily follow each other. Even better, add a calendaring function that integrates so that people can post planned workouts and report what they actually did. Here you simply need to take advantage of what your community is using and pull it together into a cohesive product.

I am a Runnersworld.com user and a happy one, but it is precisely my fondness for the site and the community of runners that makes me feel that this was an opportunity squandered by poor planning, lack of vision, and criminal lack of input from users. When you have a huge community that clearly wants to connect with each other, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. In fact, if you build a site that lets your users connect to each other and to the other places that do social media well, you win by not having to carry the overhead but serving as a portal where these multiple links connect.

 

 

Road to St Marks

I always feel like I should hit something of the confessional when I update this periodic blog. The gaps between posts have been large enough that I should provide a broader update---and in the context of a race report, perhaps that is appropriate. But not today. Looking at a short post, not a long confession.

Ran a simple six-mile out-and-back with my 15-year-younger nephew (a runner at DePauw) who barely broke a sweat while I pushed it in the heat. Getting a little wiser with age, I just ran my pace (avg 8:04/mile) without trying to prove anything. That said, I was probably feeling a bit more like a 8:15 pace so having a partner kept me close to the top of my game. My right hamstring has been bugging me for the past couple months and I had some of that on this run, no doubt exasperated by a 14-hour ride from Carbondale to Tallahassee the day before. It has been a long time since I ran with someone and I was surprised at how much more energy it takes to talk while running. Little things were also surprising, like the sound of the shorts swishing which I never hear because I am either listening to music or because little sounds.

This is the first time in a VERY long time that I have gone out for a run with someone. In my work life I spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve and foster collaborations---and pointing out that collaborative science produces BETTER science. I had a better workout and a more satisfying workout today running with someone---even doubling up on the amount that I got 'done'. Why am I such a soloist then on the trail? I think it is first a matter of laziness: I don't have a current running partner and I don't want to spend the time to recruit one. Oh, I have asked around a bit, but none of my immediate circle of friends is running seriously these days. Collaborative running would also require flexibility in my routine. With kids, my wife and I live on a pretty strict schedule that gets them fed and to bed but also gets us out to the gym. Having a 'collaborator' would require me to accommodate yet another person's schedule. And then there is the pace negotiation---because no two people actually run the same speed on the same day and it takes some skill to be able to admit your own pace needs and negotiate them with the other person. In the end, even though I know I am not getting as much out of my workouts as I could, the lazy factor takes over. The same is true in science. This requires some further thought, but I think it illuminates the difficulties of getting collaborative scientific teams off the ground.