It is hard to write a lot about a race that is over a loop course. The Camsuett Park 50K was held in a State Park over a 2.6 mile loop. It is the same thing over and over again, so it is not like you have changing scenery to describe. I really don’t mind a loop course though. I find that I get a meditative pleasure out of it. The key to running a loop course is to see how evenly you can do each loop and for the most part this is what I accomplished. In general, you are running with two types of runners. The first kinds are those runners who are faster and wind up looping you; and the second kind, those who are slower, which you loop. Obviously, I tried to loop as many runners as I could and limit the number of runners (and number of times) the faster runners were able to pass me.

I was looking forward to this race all week long. It was going to be the first real test of my shins and real distance racing. I didn’t know how they would react and whether or not the pain would build up and force me to drop out. Fortunately, the pain was never that bad, although I could tell that whatever is bothering my shins was greatly limiting my speed. I was able to keep a nice steady pace, but I was concerned with my inability to generate any real speed. This really is only a concern, because I want to run a Boston Marathon Qualifier at the upcoming New Jersey Marathon. I felt that with the number of 20+ milers I’ve done so far this year that I should have been able to maintain a faster pace. I really don’t understand why I have such a lack of speed and this is something I am going to have to discuss with my coach. Perhaps with my shins, it is just not possible for me to run fast at this point.

As with any long distance race, I was riding an emotional roller coaster throughout it. There were times that I seriously considered dropping out, when I was wondering why I was bothering to place this punishment on my body. The there would be times I felt good and wanted to keep on going. I am smart enough to know now that a lot of these feelings have to do with the timing of my nutrition. I mostly found that during the first half of the loop I was pretty miserable and wanted to quit, but by the time I got to the second half, the food I had taken in at the aid station/lap counting location would start to kick in and I would feel better. Ultimately though, what I think got me through this race was the announcement I made to my friends on Twitter that I was going to run a 50K this weekend. I didn’t feel like going back later on and telling anyone that I had quit the race because I didn’t feel like going on.

I did have a couple of low points. The biggest one was as I was just finishing up my 7th of 12 total loops. I was developing some nasty blisters on my right foot and I knew I needed to take care of them. I stopped at the aid station, grabbed some Vaseline and lathered it on my toes with the blisters. It helped somewhat and I was able to proceed without being in too much pain. The delay cost me 3 minutes which I came to rue later on as it caused me to miss breaking 5 hours on the clock. I came in at 5:01:40 and in addition got passed within the last few feet by another runner as we sprinted to the finish, but more on that later. If only I was man enough to deal with a little more pain, I would have broken 5 hours and moved up a couple of places in the standings.

I kept myself fueled throughout the race by drinking from a bottle of HEED that I prepared at home. I am really glad I took that I didn’t rely completely on the food provided by the race. The food at the race was mostly PB&J sandwiches, or which I did eat several, cookies, M&M’s and cola. I alternated my fueling with the HEED and PB&J and cola. It worked well for me and I was never really hungry or low on energy. During the entire course of the race, I was alternating between being too hot and too cold. There were times that the wind was behind you with the bright sun shining down upon you and I wished I didn’t have my running jacket on. Inevitably though, I would come around a last turn that led into the aid station which had a strong cold headwind blowing right through you. At those times I was glad to have my jacket. All I could do was marvel at those runners who ran in short sleeves, singlet’s and shorts. I was dressed for harsh winter conditions. Perhaps I should have dressed a little lighter, so I would have been encouraged to speed up to generate body heat.

Once I got past the 7th loop I knew I was more than half way home. At this point I thought I had to do 13 laps, so I was saying to myself, just keep steady and keep running. I guess the high point of the race came around the 10/11th lap when I finally realized that we only had to do 12 laps. I found this out when I was at the aid station and I asked the race director how many total loops we had to do. He told me 12 and I replied “That’s all”. He thought I was a little crazy so I explained to him that I thought we were doing 13. It was like being given a little present. My pace was starting to slow down from the mid 9 min/mile to somewhere in the 10’s. I was happy to know that the race would soon be over with.

Once I got into double digit laps I knew I has the race complete. I passed the marathon point at about 4 hours into the race so I knew I had an excellent chance of breaking 5 hours. I wasn’t really paying attention to my watch; otherwise I would have pushed it a little harder on my last lap. It was this last lap that annoyed me as someone passed me within 200 yards to the finish line. I let him take the lead for a little while and then decided to make a move to try to retake him. I held him off until about 30 yards in front of the finish where he caught me and beat me by 3 seconds. I should have waited a little while longer to make my move so as to have the surprise and more importantly, I shouldn’t have stopped to fix that blister, since that is really where I lost the time. In the end, it really didn’t matter though as that extra place had no impact on whether or not I won an age group award. It was though a great sprint to the finish and we both looked at each other and laughed and thanked each other for the strong finish at the end.

I felt pretty good after the race and took my time getting ready to leave. I drank some Recoverite to refuel and had a little bit of the post race food. I really couldn’t tolerate anything solid in my stomach at that point, so I was glad to have my recovery drink. Later on when I got out of my car from driving home, my shins were completely shot. It was agony walking to the front door of my house from my car. It made me a little nervous, because I was wondering if I just crippled myself. However, a few ibuprofen fixed me up and I was able to move relatively well after that. To further soothe my legs and shins I took an ice bath. That always a brisk and semi-torturous experience depending on how hot you are after a race. As it was winter time, this bath felt a little more frigid than when I race hard in the summer. I also knew that one of the reasons why my shins hurt so badly was running on worn out sneakers; well at least the right shoe. I wear them out unevenly. Here is a picture of my quite dead right show.

I did see my podiatrist the next day to get the blisters on my feet taken care of and to ask him about my shins. He gave me a bit of cortisone in each shin and fitted me with some special orthotics that he invented and is looking to bring to market. He is using me as a case study to see how they work. I need to wait 72 hours before I run again (after the cortisone shots), but I can’t wait to see how I feel in them. Hopefully, I will feel a lot better. I’ll also be starting on a new pair of sneakers as the shoes I wore for the 50K were very sadly worn out. There was no way I should have been running in them. Here is a picture of one of the shoes that shows how worn out it is.

Anyway, I hope I recover quickly. My next ultra race is the Queens 60 Kilo (37.2 miles) on March 29. It’s another loop course and I am looking forward to it. Hopefully, I’ll get to do it with a couple of friends. It’s always good to have company of these long runs.

Sunday (2/24) I went on another running journey with my friend Larry through New York City. We started out with a partial lap of Prospect Park, exiting through Grand Army Plaza and then down to Lafayette Street where we picked up the NYC Marathon course. The roads were a bit icy, but not too bad, although on occasion my foot would hit the occasional icy puddle and get cold and soggy. The course was nothing new at this point and we slowly and steadily made our way through Fort Greene into Williamsburg.

Once in Williamsburg, we stopped for a moment at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration . It’s supposedly the most beautiful cathedral in Brooklyn. Either way it made for a nice picture so I stopped and snapped a photo. We then ran into McCarren Park for a quick stop at the comfort station. Normally at this point we would then head for the Williamsburg Bridge, but today we decided to go for the 59th Street (Queensborough) Bridge.

To get to the 59th Street Bridge, we picked up the NYC Marathon course again and headed towards the Kosciuszko Bridge for our trip into Queens. The Kosciuszko Bridge is the half way point of the NYC Marathon and in my opinion one of the more difficult parts of the course. The view from the bridge is spectacular though. We were fortunate to come across someone walking over the bridge at the same time we were crossing it and asked this person to take a picture of us. Here we are on the bridge with the picture looking southwest towards midtown Manhattan and the Empire State Building. The Newton Creek runs below the bridge and separate Brooklyn from Queens at this point. I also took a picture of the skyline alone so you can get a better idea of the view from here.

Once over the Kosciuszko, we ran through Long Island City towards the 59th Street Bridge. Larry and I talked about a future run in which we would skip the 59th Street and head to the Tri-Borough Bridge instead. In the meantime though, we kept running and made a pit stop at corner bodega about a half mile from the bridge. The pit stop was just in time as I was getting a bit hungry and I unfortunately forgot to bring some Hammer Gel with me, so I bought a Snickers bar and a Gatorade to refuel. It wasn’t what I preferred to eat, but it will do in a pinch. Honestly though when it comes to ultra running, you need to train your stomach to take on a variety of foods which includes something solid; not just gels.

After eating and drinking we made our way onto the 59th Street Bridge. This was undoubtedly the least pleasant part of our run. Only the north side of the bridge was open for running, which meant that you didn’t get the nice views of Manhattan. Plus this side was in the shade and also very icy, in addition to being very cold, windy, noisy and had freezing water dripping down on us from the upper roadway. I would have liked to have gotten several pictures from the bridge, but it was pretty miserable on it and I really didn’t feel like stopping. The only picture I took was looking north from the bridge, on the east side of Roosevelt Island. The most distinguishing landmark of this picture is the smoke stacks which were featured in the movie Conspiracy Theory starring Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts.

Once we made our slow miserable way off of the bridge, we headed south on First Avenue until we could make our way onto the East River Greenway. The East River was flat as glass and the path offered great views of Queens, Brooklyn, and the Manhattan skyline and was just in general a very pleasant place to run. As we made our way south, we ran into another ultra runner that Larry knew, so we stopped to chat for a while. This gave me an opportunity to take one last picture during the run. What you see here is a view of the east river looking north towards the 59th Street Bridge from somewhere around the 30’s (streets between 30-39th Street).

Once we got going again, we decided it would be non-stop until we made it back home. We ran along the East River path under the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges and made our way onto the north side of the Manhattan Bridge. We once again did a nice tempo run over the bridge into Brooklyn and made our way back up Flatbush Avenue, through Grand Army Plaza and back into Prospect Park to complete the loop we started earlier that morning. As we approached our normal exit/entrance to the park Larry asked me if I wanted to go for the extra distance and run down the hill to the Ocean Parkway exit to tack on a couple of extra miles. We were approaching 22 miles at this point and I could feel my pace slowing down a bit so I decided that I had enough for the day and said that we should just call it a day. I also figured that I should perhaps taper a little bit as only a week from now I will be doing the Camseutt 50K out on Long Island. Larry gave me no argument, so we exited the park at the Bartel Pritchard entrance and made our way to the local bagel store for some post workout bagels.

I was a bit tired after this run. I could feel it in my muscles. I attribute that mostly to having taken the past few days off running due to skiing and avoiding running due to shin pain. I hate how it feels like I lose fitness so fast. But maybe I am being just too hard on myself and this new course was a little tougher than I’ve been used to. Anyway, I knew I needed to refuel, so I make a delicious shake consisting of Soy Milk, Chocolate Syrup, 2 Scoops of Recoverite and some Malted Mix. I drank that along with eating Peanut Butter and Jelly on a Multi-Grain bagel. It was a lovely and quick and easy meal. I was satisfied with how my shin felt during the run, although I will admit it was a bit painful the next day. I am really going to need to learn how to ignore this pain so that I don’t even recognize it anymore.