All week, I've been getting up earlier and going to bed earlier in preparation for Sunday's VERY early morning. Saturday, I drove to Melbourne to see how long it would take and to get my race packet and it took about an hour and fifteen minutes. With a 6:45 gun, leaving an hour to park, warm-up, etc, I wanted to get there at 5:45, which meant leaving the house at 4:30. Yikes!
So, I got up between 3:30 and 4:00 and packed up everything I'd need for the day ahead. Despite the sun not even considered rising yet, the temperature on my outside thermometer read 64 degrees. This was a whole lot warmer than I expected and so I was a bit nervous heading out. The drive actually took me longer and I was a bit late leaving, so I didn't get there until close to 6:00. Luckily, I followed all the other cars (figure that most everyone up and driving at 6:00 Sunday morning would be people for this race) and found a big grass lot that was only a few blocks from the starting line.
I parked and hopped out and for whatever reason, Melbourne's air was a good 10-15 degrees cooler. Perfect for a good, long race. Even more exciting was that the wind was very calm. I jogged down to the starting line, so I knew where it was and then jogged away from the crowd and commotion, into the comfortably cool pre-dawn darkness. At one point, I found myself a mile or so away from the start, where the world had not yet come to embrace the day, and it seemed like even the streetlights were still asleep. Suddenly, I saw something scurry across the street. It was the size of a small dog but moved like lion, sprinting across the deserted road. I was convinced that I wasn't even going to make it to the starting line as I was about to become some sort of strange southern-mountain lion's breakfast.
Remarkably, I made it back to civilization with no more chupacabra sitings. By the time I got there, a good sized crowd had already amassed near the starting line. I looked at my watch and still had a good 10 minutes before the start, so I walked away from the crowd again to do my foot drills and strides. Feeling pretty solid, I began to work my way from the back of the start-line to the front.
There were a few thousand people crowded together at this point, and it took me a couple of minutes to walk through all the pace zones :"9-10 minute miles" all the way down to "sub-6 minute miles." I stopped there at the first sign and looked around. Surprisingly, most of the people around me looked pretty old. Eventually, I would figure out that this race was the US Master's Half Marathon Championship, meaning that these were the best runners in the country (over 40) at this distance. It calmed down my ego a bit when I saw 50+ year olds passing me on the course.
There was a pretty long pre-race ceremony that involved a pretty poor saxophonist, some jingoistic speeches about country and military, and the general welcome that you just want to be over so you can start the race. During this time, an older fellow behind me said "good luck!" and shook my hand. I reciprocated and continued shaking the hands of a few people around me (the good ol CA way). It wasn't until a few minutes later when someone walked by and whispered "There's Bill Rodgers!" to her husband, that I realized who had wished me good luck.
The day before, when I had gone to pick up my race packet, there was supposed to be a signing and photo-op with famed marathoner Bill Rodgers, however, after waiting for 45 minutes with no Bill, I decided he wasn't going to show and left. I knew that he was supposed to run in this race, but I hadn't thought that he would be toeing off right behind me.
I began to talk to him again, realizing who he was. I told him that I, too, was from New England and asked him about his racing, etc. All in all, he seemed like a nice enough guy.
Finally, after the longest opening ceremonies I've ever had to sit through, the gun fired and we were off. The first few miles are the ones I remember the most clearly. The leaders went out slow, and so running my pace I was in the chase pack for the first mile or two. Two 40-45 runners broke away right from the start but there were probably 8-10 of us in that first chase pack. I thought it would be great to run with a pack like that the whole race, but they started to pick it up and go sub-5:30 which was just way out of my league. It was also around this time that I was passed by Olympian and the eventual winner of the women's race, Coleen DeReuck. She was still in shape to run 1:12:00 for the half, so I was okay with letting her by.
And so, as usual, I was in no-man's-land. It seemed like there was this huge empty space between that chase pack and (if there was one) the next pack back. From miles 2-6 or so, I ran with a younger guy, probably about 25, who told me he had tried to register that morning and couldn't and so was just running for fun without a number. This guy was wearing baggy, basketball shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt. I figured, either he's a really serious runner just goofing around, or he's going to fall apart pretty soon. Well, we continued on and he would talk a surprisingly large amount given both of our effort levels. I guess he was just a friendly guy.
The first 6 miles are basically due North. The course is basically shaped like a rectangle around the Indian river, with two long 5-6 mile stretches on either side and two long causway bridges to cross the river. We went through 5 miles in 28:40, which was right on pace (5:44/mile). My goal of 5:48/mile would bring me in with a sub-76 (1:16:00) and I felt like I had gone through the first 5 miles very comfortably and a bit ahead of that pace.
The first bridge felt pretty good. The bridges were long and arched, making them the only real hills on the course. I had dropped my friend at this point and was making pretty decent time going up this bridge. About a third of the way up, a guy came up on my right and told me to stick with him as he really booked it up this bridge. For whatever reason, I listened, and it really tired me out.
Coming down was a nice break, but a half mile or so of downhill pounding on pavement is never all that pleasant. Still, I was able to recover a bit and get back into my pace. miles 6 and 7 were the flat part of the causway and by the time I got to mile 8 in 46:08 (5:46/mile), I was still feeling good. About halfway through this mile, though, we were coming around a corner and I made a mistake that cost me my time. There was a cement drainage channel between the curb and the shoulder of the road, and between that ditch and shoulder there was about a 1-inch lip that I didn't see. Had I cut that corner half an inch wider, I may very well have run a great race. But I didn't see the lip and my right foot twisted and rolled to the right enough to make me let out an audible yelp.
I slowed to a near stop, but continued jogging. It was probably a few minutes before I even started really running again, and by that time it was a whole lot slower. I felt terrible about watching my great race slip away between my fingertips for (basically) being a clumsy idiot, but it wasn't worth putting the next weeks of training in jeopardy. So, I took the last couple miles a lot easier, until I finally felt like I could start to push it again. The last mile I got back under 6:00/mile pace and even finished with a good kick.
I finished the race feeling pretty dissatisfied with my time (somewhere near 1:20:00), but overall very satisfied with the effort. The race was supposed to be an indicator of my strength and fitness. Not only did I get that indication, but I think the results were pretty good.
After I got some water and walked around in a haze for a bit, I found the free-massage-table and hopped on board. I got stretched out and had her work my ITs and hamstrings and it was super-nice. I told her about my ankle roll and she pointed me in the direction of the medical tent. The medic told me that as long as I had full range of motion and it wasn't too swollen, that it wasn't too bad. He told me to ice and and take some ibuprofen tonight.
There were a whole bunch of post-race activities going on. There was a free pancake breakfast and a bunch of booths and stalls giving away stuff. I actually headed back to my car pretty quickly because once I stopped running I got pretty cold. I changed my shoes and put on a few more layers and jogged a couple of super-slow miles to cooldown.
I'd heard that Bill Rodgers would be presenting the awards, so I decided to stick around, hoping I could talk to him or something. Also, I hadn't seen many other sub-20 year olds, so I figured I might get a shout out for being first in that age group. So, I was stuck listening to a ZZ-Top coverband for 40 minutes before the awards started. I did meet a couple of nice guys who had flown down from Maine just for this race. They were masters who were both getting awards and had both run a good bit faster than me.
When it finally started, it took a while, but I ended up getting a Gold Medallion for my achievements. Not bad for a day's work. Both one of the older guys I met and my coach, Jon, who I talked to later, said similar things about winning. I didn't really give this medal that much worth because there really wasn't a whole lot of competition in my age group (the next finisher was 10 minutes behind me). But, as Jon said, "Winning is winning, you can't beat it." I think there's a whole lot of truth to that, and I also think of what Peter Jennings once said about cross country which was "even just being out here on this team you are beating all of the people who were too chicken to even try." I think this is even more applicable in a race like this where my time may not be that great, but the dedication it took me to get here is worth something. Between getting up at 3:30 in the morning, running on a mildly sprained ankle, and just having the drive to want to run a race this long, maybe I deserve something.
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