40 degrees in July

Cal, me and Roger before a game.

Over the 4th of July we headed to Pittsburgh for the 5th Annual Tropicurl.  Roger and I have been to every Tropicurl and so we were awarded a special patch for our loyalty!  This year we had a new team, with me as skip, Laurel as vice, Roger as 2nd and Cal as lead.  The first game was a bit rocky.  We were all rusty, made a lot of mistakes and lost to a Canadian team on Thursday night.  We regrouped on Friday and Saturday, winning three games against a Pittsburgh team and two Canadian teams.  On Sunday, we played in the semi-finals against another Canadian team from Ontario.  We stayed in the game until the 7th end.  When we couldn't score, we shook hands after the 7th and called it a day.  It's always a treat to be in a nice cool ice arena when it's 90 degrees outside! 

Cal, Laurel and Roger.

Prepping the ice before the game.

North Coast Preparation

A view of downtown Cleveland from Edgewater Park,
site of the North Coast 24-hour race

The North Coast 24-Hour Race has once again been designated as the National Championship site.  Interest is starting to build with over 80 runners registered at this point and there are still 2 1/2 months to go before the race.  The top three  women and men will automatically be selected for the U.S. team, and will compete next June in Switzerland at the World 24-Hour Championship.

North Coast race organizers have scheduled a number for "training" runs at Edgewater Park.  I attended the first one this past Sunday, starting at 7:00 a.m.  It is a nice opportunity to get a feel for the course and chat with people who have signed up for the race.  The weather was incredibly hot and humid.  The positives were that there were no bugs and a nice breeze was coming off of the lake for part of the run.

Next training run will be on July 24th, starting at 9:00 a.m.

2010 World 24-Hour Wrap-Up

Pardon the delayed race report but I ended up spending an extra week in France after the race, biking through the Loire Valley and enjoying the beautiful castles, drinking chenin blanc and flushing the lactic acid from my legs.

Chateau at Azay Le Rideau

Many of my teammates have already provided details of the race on their blogs, Jamie Donaldson, Dan Rose, Scott Jurek and Phil McCarthy. Rather than rehash what they’ve already written, I thought I would add my perspective from one of the old and slow people on the team.

I was in many ways dreading this race. Ever since the North Coast 24 last October, I’ve been struggling with a very inflamed Achilles. First, I ignored it, then I quit running on it, then I went to two different doctors (ankle specialists) and a physical therapist and when all that failed, I even tried some Chinese herbal medicine that made my ankle break out in a nasty rash. But when all was said and done, my Achilles remained swollen and I was reduced to minimal training. My “intense” training was in April when I ran one 3-hour training run with pain and then a marathon with intermittent pain. I did no other long runs before France since November of last year.  Here are lovely pictures just days before the race.

Normal left Achilles

Swollen right Achilles

Roger and I arrived in Paris on Sunday, May 9th. We toured around Paris with fellow teammates Jamie Donaldson and Dan Rose and their spouses David and Lizzie. This was a great diversion from thinking too much about the race.

Roger and I with the Thinker at the Rodin Museum

On Wednesday we took the train to Brive, a four-hour ride. We hooked up with the team and participated in the opening ceremony where we marched through the center of town and into the covered stadium that would turn into the country aid stations in the morning. This is always a very cool event to see all of the colorful uniforms and this year we all looked like real athletes with our Nike uniforms, courtesy of USATF.

Lining up before the parade through town.

With the ceremony finished, we headed back to the hotel and then to dinner. I accidentally stumbled upon ordering a four cheese pizza, which was topped with various types of brie and gorgonzola cheese. Dr. Andy told me that this was an excellent meal for ultrarunners (the soft cheese). I figured that I needed any advantage at that point and hoped this was a good omen.

After dinner, Dr. Andy looked at my Achilles. As he suspected, I had a dropped navicular bone (that is located in the arch of the bottom of my foot). Apparently when it drops out of position, it can cause irritation in the Achilles area. He had me flex my foot different ways and then on the count of three he manipulated the bone back in place. Boy, did that hurt. I let out a yelp but instantly the pain went away. Would I be able to run in the morning with no pain and with no training? I was still skeptical.

The weather in Paris had been rainy and it was no different in Brive. The forecast also did not look promising. But when the gun went off at the start at 10:00 a.m., there was no rain. With each passing hour, I kept expecting the skies to open up but that in fact did not occur. The weather remained dry throughout the race with some humidity but cool, mid-50s at best.

At the beginning of the race.

Part of the course.

Starting to warm up, a few hours into the race.

Aid station alley in the covered pavilion.  US aid station on left.

I had decided to run a very conservative race. I had expected at some point to be reduced to walking because of my Achilles so I wanted to delay that as long as possible. My exact plan was to run between 9:45 to 10:00 minute miles with stretching breaks. As always seems to happen, the race itself is much of a blur. I was aware of the US men and women doing really well. Scott’s and Jill’s names were announced over the loudspeaker many times and it was really exciting that two US runners were in first place. The other US men were running well too. Other than that, I retreated into my own little world and concentrated on moving forward and eating and drinking according to my pre-race plan. My first stretching break was 5 ½ hours into the race. After that, I stopped every three hours. Those three hour time blocks were my goals to reach at which point I would be rewarded with a 5-minute stretch. That was heaven.

Through the park and on the gravel path.

My least favorite place - a hair-pin turn.

One of the turns after a nice straight-away.

High-tech scoreboard: 
Shows bib number, kilometers ran, pace per loop and what place your in.

As dusk turned to night, the temperature dropped. It felt like it was in the 40s. It was at this point that I knew the US women were in trouble. Jill had dropped out and Jamie, Suzanna and Amy were all battling different forms of illness. Anna was also having some issues but she snapped back and was looking very strong. I had stopped at the 8 and 16 hour marks to change socks. At 16 hours, I also changed into a long-sleeved shirt, and then added a sleeveless vest and my IPod to push on throughout the night. For fuel, I was using Hammer Perpetuem and Hammer Gels (besides electrolytes every hour). After I got sick of that, I ate pretzels, bananas and oranges. In the wee hours of the night, I had soup, coffee and tea.

The field seemed less crowded in the nighttime. I think a lot of people had stopped to get warm. It was actually nice running in the moonlight, very peaceful. At the same time, I was getting lapped like crazy by Scott and the Japanese runner, Inoue Shingo, who would eventually take the men’s first place slot. It was really inspiring to see them move in what appeared to be such an effortless manner.

Dawn broke and then the hours counted down until the 10:00 a.m. finish. I was still running steady and was able to move up through the ranks. In the early hours of the race, I was in 55th place (out of 81 females). Each hour I was able to move up. At 12 hours, I had about 69 miles and was in 33rd place. At a little over 18 hours, I had 100 miles and was 22nd female. By the 23rd hour, I was around the 200k mark and had moved into 14th place. I would end up 14th with 207.825 K. 

Only about an hour to go! 

At the end of the race, Scott had broken the American Record and came in 2nd overall and the US men had run very hard, just missing the silver medal and taking the bronze medal. Final results were:  Scott Jurek, 165.70 miles; Michael Henze, 154.48 miles; Serge Arbona, 150.48 miles; Phil McCarthy, 143.23 miles; John Geesler, 108.41 miles; Dan Rose, 91.27 miles (withdrawn for medical reasons).

After the race, Scott, with 1st place male, Inoue Shingo.

The US women ended up as a team in 4th place. Final results were: Anna Piskorska, 133.23 miles; Deb Horn, 129.13 miles; Suzanna Bon, 126.36 miles; Amy Palmiero-Winters, 123.99 miles; Jamie Donaldson, 120.61 miles; Jill Perry, 80.36 miles (withdrawn for medical reasons).

After the race, Jamie, me, Suzanna, Amy & Anna.

We were all a bit in a fog but first showered and then headed to the award ceremony. It was a special treat as they served champagne before the awards!!  Many THANKS to DryMax for keeping my feet happy during the race.  Also, many THANKS to Nike and USATF for funding the Team and providing us with official team uniforms.

Roger and I then retreated to the hotel. I feasted on two pieces of pizza and two beers and then called it a night. We woke the next morning and headed to the Loire Valley for a week of bike riding. Here are a few photos of the beautiful countryside.

Too many vineyards, too little time!

Roger at Chateau Chambord.

Villandry Chateau

Usse  Chateau

Je suis prêt à courir

Well, I am definitely rusty on my French but I'm hoping to not be rusty for the World Championships.  Less than a week away before we compete at the Worlds in Breve, France.

The popularity of the race continues to build each year.  The list of runners was recently published and we have 81 women from 22 countries competing this year (compared to 65 women from 18 countries last year).  On the men's side of the race, 153 men from 30 countries will compete. 

For the team competition, we also have additional teams signed up.  We had 11 in 2008, 14 in 2009 and this year 17 teams (a team must have at least 3 runners).  The countries bringing women's teams this year are: Australia, Austria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Russia, Spain, Sweden and United States.

Looking over the list, some big miles have been posted by the French team.  They have won the gold medal at the Worlds for the last two years.  Can they make it three in a row?  Team USA is hoping to prevent that!  Other strong contenders (at least on paper) are Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Russia.  The US women were able to pull out the Silver medal last year with Italy taking the bronze.  Should be an exciting race.

It is interesting to note that Russia's team of three women are all older than me with one being over 60!  Now that's inspiring!!

The race should be covered a few places on the Internet:  the race website:   http://www.24h-brive.fr/ and the International Association of Ultrarunners website: http://www.iau.org.tw/news_detail.php?Id=561
There is even going to be live updates on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/iaunews

Once the race is over, I'll be posting all the details and hopefully bring home a medal!!

Last Ohio Marathon?

So, I thought I had run all of the organized marathons in Ohio.  In years past, I've run (1) Cleveland Rite-Aid; (2) Cleveland Inaugural - only lasted 1 year; (3) Akron; (4) Cincinnati Flying Pig; (5) Columbus; (6) Glass City - Toledo; (7) Towpath; (8) Athens; (9) Air Force - Dayton; (10) Inland Trail - Elyria; (11) Last Chance for Boston - Dublin; and (12) Ohio River Road Runners - Xenia.

As I was searching for a training run in April, I stumbled across a new one - the Earth Day Challenge marathon in Gambier, Ohio.  I quickly signed up for it as it fit perfectly into my running schedule.

The marathon was held on April 25th.  The course was advertised as flat.  The first 4 miles, however, wound around the town of Gambier and was a series of rolling hills.  After we got that out of the way, we headed out onto the Kokosing Gap Bike Trail, a well-maintained paved path - which was very flat.

It was held in conjunction with a half-marathon so there were a fair amount of people for the first half of the race.  The second half was a bit lonely as I think there were about 120 total marathoners in the race.  All of the aid station workers and road crossing volunteers were very friendly so I did have some company.  The drink choice was Heed and Hammer Gels were passed out too.  Perfect!!

Weather conditions at the start were ideal but things heated up a bit for the second-half.  There was some tree cover on the path but the sun poked through a bit and I got my first sun-burn of the season.  Right after the race, the sky opened up and poured.  Sadly, I think a lot of the runners got caught in it.

This was a very nice, low-key race.  Very well run.  And in keeping with the earth day theme, all of the goodie bags had compact fluorescent light bulbs - something I can actually use.  I will definitely keep this race in mind for next year.

So have I missed any other Ohio marathons?

Congrats to Teammate Amy Palmiero-Winters

Last week the ultrarunning community got some very exciting news.  The AAU Sullivan Committee announced that my 24-hour teammate, Amy Palmiero-Winters, was the recipient of the 2009 James E. Sullivan Award "for her outstanding athletic abilities and accomplishments in her sport as well as sportsmanship, leadership and character (on & off the field) in her lifestyle as a whole."  I am certain that this is the first time an ultrarunner has received the Sullivan award.

This is a huge honor.  Amy joins such other past recipients as Frank Shorter, Carol Lewis, Florence Joyner and Joan Bennoit- Samuelson.  Amy's story is truly inspiring.  Looking forward to finally meeting her in France.

Field Set for World Championship

It is very encouraging to see the 24-Hour Race has increased participation each year from when I started four years ago.  Last year, 28 countries participated and 14 women's teams competed (a team must include at least 3 runners from a country).

This year, runners from a total of 30 countries are set to participate in France on May 13th.  Additionally, we now have increased the number of women's teams - 16 total!  The women's teams are: Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Russia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States.

While the French women are the heavy favorites (they took the Number 1 and 2 spots last year and the Gold Team medal), I have confidence in my teammates that the French will get a run for their money.  It should be exciting to watch!