Reach the Beach 2010!!!

We did it!!!  After 209.06 miles, 25 hours 9 minutes and 27 seconds, team Front Runners NY Ultragays ran from Cannon Mountain to Hampton Beach, covering countless miles of misery, sleeplessness, terror, darkness, cold, and agony.  Along the way, there were many unforgettable moments of jubilation, excitement, and just plain fun that made Reach the Beach 2010 one of my favorite running events of all time.

In a first for FRNY, we sent SIX teams of runners to RTB this year: a regular 12-person men's team ("The Real Front Runners of New York"), four men's ultra teams ("The Ultra Mission Men," "Fast Not Furious," "The Clowns Will Get Me," and "The Ultragays") and one mixed team ("The Ladies Tea Society")--in total about 50 runners and support people.  And from what I can tell, everyone had a ton of fun and put in some really impressive racing.

We started the morning with FRNY's traditional pre-RTB breakfast at Polly's Pancake Parlor in Sugar Hill, NH.  These are seriously the best pancakes anywhere!  You get to choose your own batter and mix-in for each pancake.... I got buckwheat/blueberry, oatmeal buttermilk/chocolate chip, and cornmeal/coconut...  yummm!!

After breakfast, team Ultragays got to Cannon Mountain for our 3pm start.  This year, our start time was the same as three of the four other FRNY men's teams.  This was both good and bad.  Good because, at least at the beginning, we would be seeing the other teams along the course.  Bad because the fact that we would be "competing" against each other could make things a bit more stressful.  The other two ultra teams (the Mission Men and Fast Not Furious) were quite a bit faster than us, so I expected them to take off pretty quickly and probably lose us not long after the start.  But I figured we were pretty evenly matched up against the Real Front Runners team (even though they were 12 and we were just 6), so I was a little nervous that it could become an intense fight for the finish the whole way.  Actually, the thought of a competition made me feel super anxious...during the pre-race orientation, Mike Terry had to calm me down because I was pretty much hyperventilating.  I tried to convince myself that we weren't really competing against the other FRNY teams--we were just running the relay to have fun.

There are indeed many opportunities to focus on having fun at RTB in a way that does not involve the stresses of racing.  One is our wardrobe.  The Ultragays of course were wearing cute little custom singlets.  We got navy Asics singlets this year, very similar to the official FRNY racing singlets, but with "ULTRAGAYS" emblazoned on the front with our team motto, "Live FAB or Die!"  People definitely noticed us, and we got a bunch of compliments.  We also decorated our van proudly proclaiming that we were the Ultragays.  I think we were able to bring a lot of good attention to both our team and FRNY.  Probably in part due to our van and singlets, and partly due to our fabulousness, we found out there was another gay running team in the race, a non-FRNY team, "GURL Boston."  I think GURL stands for Gay Urban Running League.  We met some of their runners and they seemed very nice.  If any of you GURLs are reading this, feel free to come to an FRNY Fun Run the next time you're in New York!

At 3:00, our teams were off.  Kyle was the first to run.  His first leg was a moderate-hard 7.97 miles, leading out of Cannon Mountain onto the the roads of Franconia, NH.  We had planned to meet him halfway to give him Gatorade.  As we entered the van and drove off, this was when our first (and, thankfully, only real) stressful incident came.  The time was ticking, we had to meet Kyle about 30 minutes after he started, and I realized that I lost my cell phone.  I was torn between just letting go and hoping the phone made its way to the  lost and found, and having my whole team turn around to look for my phone.  We ended up turning around the van, getting a little lost on the highway, running back to the start, where the race official had found my phone and was holding it for safekeeping.  Apparently, as I was jumping up and down cheering on Kyle and the other Front Runners, my phone fell out of my pocket.  Anyway, crisis averted.

I was the sixth leg in my team, so the last one to go.  The order was Kyle, Evan, Peter, Onesimo, Mike Terry and me.  Paul was our driver.  Here's our list of legs:

My hope for the relay was to keep all of my legs to a 7:00-7:30 pace.  I started my first leg at 6:10 pm, so I had to don a reflective vest with flashing lights and a headlamp even though it wasn't dark yet. For my first leg, which was also my longest at 8.62 miles and a net downhill of 373 feet, my concern was to not go too fast.  I knew that the downhill pounding would be killer on my quads, which I would definitely regret by leg five or six, so I tried my best not to let myself get carried away.  RTB is the one time of year when I break out my Garmin, since the miles aren't marked and I would go crazy not knowing how fast I'm going or how much I have left.  I set the watch to beep every half mile so I could adjust my running accordingly.  My pacing was a little inconsistent on this first leg, with half-mile laps between 3:23 (6:46 pace) and 3:39 (7:18 pace).  But I finished leg 1 pretty much right on target in 60:52 (7:03 pace).

My second leg was at 10:36 pm.  It was short, just 3.87 miles, but there was a bit of a vertical climb.  This was my first leg in the dark.  To make matters worse, the first half mile was in the woods.  It was pitch black, not even any moonlight could get in through the trees.  And while the first quarter mile was on a paved bike path, it soon turned into a dirt trail.  OMG, are you kidding me?!?!  There was no light, and twigs and rocks were all over the place.  I could just imagine myself twisting an ankle and taking a spill.  I was going slowly in this area, and I got passed by two runners, but I thought that it would be better to be safe than sorry.  This leg was more consistent, though, with half-mile splits between 3:32 (7:04 pace) and 3:43 (7:26 pace).  My final time was 27:41 (7:09 pace).  

Right after my second leg, we drove to Transition Area 13, which is always my favorite TA.  Here, some local townspeople set up a veritable smörgåsbord of hot, tasty, home-cooked food.  I filled up, and it really hit the spot.

I was definitely concerned about my third leg, which I started at 3:10 am.  It was 4.89 miles and, although it was mostly downhill, the last mile had a 250' rise.  I took my first half mile out at 3:18 (6:36 pace), which I soon realized was way too fast.  I slowed down a bit and my next three miles were all around 7:30 pace.  But then the hill came.  It was pretty brutal, although I did pass three people.  My Garmin beeped but I refused to look at it because I didn't want to know how slow I was going.  About a third of a mile from the finish, a runner passed me, and I mustered up all the energy I could to try to stay with him.  But I couldn't really hang on, and he finished quite a bit before me.  So the splits for the last 2 miles were:

              Mile 3.0 - 3.5    3:56 (7:52 pace)

              Mile 3.5 - 4.0    4:04 (8:08 pace)

              Mile 4.0 - 4.5    4:16 (8:32 pace....yikes!)

              Mile 4.5 - 4.89  3:10 (8:08 pace) 

This was my slowest leg, which I finished in 38:22 (7:50 pace).  Ugh.

After leg 3, I pretty much passed out.  I felt like crap.  As you can see, I looked like crap too:

I ended up sleeping through the next several transitions.  I just didn't have the energy to cheer on everyone or help give out Gatorade.  Apparently, at one point I abruptly woke up from my slumber and yelled out mean/funny things about certain other people...I don't really remember, I was pretty delirious at that point.

I was really nervous about leg 4.  It wasn't particularly difficult, except for a half-mile, 90 foot hill at mile 5.5 (pretty similar in size and distance to Harlem Hill), but it was my second longest run at 6.87 miles.  I felt like my legs had nothing more to give.  I popped an Aleve beforehand and hoped for the best.  I don't remember very much about this leg, but it began at 7:45 am, so I didn't have to wear the stupid vest anymore.  (You can see from the picture above that I had to put medical tape on my neck because the vest was chafing it so much.)  The van stopped about halfway through to give me Gatorade.  A woman passed me, going really fast and I couldn't keep up with her; that annoyed me.  But I did manage to pass about a dozen other people.  I finished in 51:42, for an average 7:31 pace on this leg.  The half-mile that included the big hill was at 4:07 (8:14 pace).

Somewhere between my 4th and 5th legs, the "Real Front Runners" team passed us.  I felt completely defeated.  Of course, it wasn't really a competition, especially since they had twelve runners compared to our six.  But we had been ahead up until now, and it was so disappointing that with their much fresher legs, they had caught up and then overtaken us.  At this point, I started to get stressed out.  Our teams were pretty much neck and neck.  I was running against Manja from the Real Front Runners.  Leg five was a short one, only 3.15 miles.  It was 12:47 pm, and I felt like it was a new day.  As I stood at the transition area with Manja, I saw that Mike, from my team, was the next runner to come in.  He had taken the lead back for the Ultragays!  I couldn't see where the next Real Front Runner was, so I knew I had a comfortable lead.  I grabbed the baton/wristband from Mike and proceeded to BOOK IT out of there.  My emotions were all over the place. But I knew I couldn't let myself get passed by Manja.  I ran so friggin fast.  My first half mile was 3:18 (6:36 pace).  I knew there was no way I could sustain that speed, after already running over 24 miles.  But I couldn't help it -- I was terrified at the prospect of being passed by another Front Runner.  My first two miles were well under 7 minute pace.  It was so hard.  I looked over my shoulder after a left turn to see if he was behind me.  I didn't see him, and let out a huge sigh of relief.  I slowed down a tiny bit for the last mile, and made it to the transition at 21:38...a 6:52 pace, my fastest pace of the day!  Manja must have been flying for that last mile too, though, because he came in right after me.

By the time I was up for the final leg of the race, the Real Front Runners had passed us again and were well ahead of us.  I actually felt this was a bit of a relief.  I couldn't bear another intensely stressful, fast leg.  My last leg was 4.09 miles.  It was also the very last leg of the relay, so I got to actually "Reach the Beach."  The leg started at 3:40 in the afternoon, and I was so exhausted by this point after 24 hours of racing.  The first two miles headed straight towards the beach, and the last two miles ran along the coastline.  About a mile in, I could smell the sea air and I knew I was getting close.  I had passed several people along the way.  But one guy who I passed at mile 1 decided to stick with me.  He proceeded to follow me, about 3 steps behind me, for the entire rest of the run.  I couldn't shake him off.  And he was pushing me to go faster and faster.  All I wanted was for him to pass me so I could finish my last couple of miles without killing myself.  But he just stuck on, three feet behind me.  As we were at the last half mile or so, spectators were cheering for us.  They loved the fact that we were almost neck-and-neck.  I heard someone shout out that there was a fight to the finish.  Around this time, I also heard, coming from above, people shouting "DAAAVE LIIIIINNN!"  I didn't know who it was or where it came from, but it just pushed me to go harder and faster.

Then, with about a quarter mile left, I made a turn, and I had reached the beach!  But... I had to run on....  SAND?!?!   Not even packed beach sand but loose sand, that almost stopped me dead in my tracks.  But I knew that the other guy was just a few feet behind me, so I kept pushing, trying to wade through the ankle-deep sand.  And finally, FINALLY, I saw the finishing chute.  I looked for my team but they were nowhere in sight.  I heard other Front Runners though, cheering for me, and I just ran as hard as I could possibly go through that finish line.

It was exhilarating.  It was such of rush of emotions.  I had no idea I could push myself that hard.  I was so relieved it was over.  I was so happy to see other Front Runners at the end to cheer me through.  But I was so heartbroken that the rest of the Ultragays weren't there to share the moment with me (their van had apparently gotten stuck in traffic and couldn't make it to the finish in time).

That last leg, miles 27-31, was one of my faster ones, which I ran at a 7:04 pace.  I was elated.  This past year has been a tough one for me and my running.  I knew I was undertrained.  I've had to deal with my butt injury for almost a year now.  Through x-rays, MRIs, loads of physical therapy, and even a steroid injection, my running (and my sanity) have taken quite a toll.  I truly, really had doubts about whether I would be able to finish this race.

But in the end, both my team and I (and my Club) did great.  I finished my 31.49 miles at a 7:16 pace.  A little bit slower than last year's 7:03 pace, but a solid time nonetheless.  I felt great at the finish and proud that I could push myself so hard.  My team, the Ultragays, was the fifth FRNY team, but I was so happy of our achievement.  We finished the 209.06 miles at an astonishing 7:13 pace, enough to place us 25th out of 429 finishers (most of whom were 12-person teams).  And even more important than our clock time, was the fact that we had just a great time together.  Due to several dropouts, the Jewish holiday, injury and last minute conflicts, our team was not assembled until two days before we left for New Hampshire.  At times, I had doubts about whether there would actually be an Ultragays team.  But in the end, we all raced remarkably well, and we had a time that none of us will ever forget.  Thanks Mike, Kyle, Peter, Onesimo, Evan and Paul for making Reach the Beach 2010 such a great, exciting, crazy, memorable and fun experience!

Congratulations to all of the Front Runners New York teams, and to everyone who ran Reach the Beach!!!

Team Name     

Overall   Category   Cat/Plc.  Pace   Finish Time

--------  --------   --------  ----   ----------

FRNY Ultra Mission Men          

10   1-Men Ultra     1/19      6:27   22:31:00

Front Runners Fast not Furious  

13   1-Men Ultra     2/19      6:38   23:07:43

FRNY - The Clowns Will Get Me   

19   1-Men Ultra     5/19      7:08   24:52:26

Real Front Runners of New York  

24   2-Men Open      6/118     7:11   25:04:29

Front Runners NY Ultragays      

25   1-Men Ultra     6/19      7:13   25:09:27

FRNY Ladies Tea Society         

330  14-Mixed Open   104/148   8:53   30:58:53

Oh My God, What Did I Get Myself Into?

I am truly, truly, truly, truly terrified.  In 24 hours, I will be riding in a van full of Front Runners to run in the Reach the Beach Relay, a 200-mile relay race that starts in New Hampshire's White Mountains and ends at the Atlantic coast.  This will be my fourth time running Reach the Beach.  But I've never been so scared to do it.

The first two times I ran RTB, I was in a "regular" 12-person team.  200 miles divided by 12 people isn't too bad...  about 16 miles total, spread out over three legs in around 24 hours.  Last year, I was in an "Ultra" team, so there were only six of us splitting up the 200 miles in six legs each.  I ran about 31 miles last year, and it was so brutal.  I hated every second of it.  I hated running up hills in the pitch black darkness, having no idea how much farther the hill would go on, or even if my next step would be up or downhill.  I hated running completely sleep-deprived, to the point where I was imagining other runners creeping up behind me when there was no one, absolutely no one, within half a mile of me.  I hated running 20 miles of the steepest hills I had ever experienced only to realize that I still had 11 more miserable miles to go.  I even hated finishing each leg, because I knew that I had less than three hours before I had to do the whole thing all over again.

And most of all, I hated the fact that there was another Front Runner team, perfectly matched up against us in their pace, who ran almost side-by-side with us throughout the whole race.  It was so intense.  So stressful.  I just wanted it to be over as soon as it started.  I had never been so exhausted, scared, miserable, almost delirious in my life.

And as soon as it was over, I couldn't wait to do it again.  It was the most amazing experience ever.  I have never felt myself pushed to the absolute limits quite like that, both mentally and physically.  I was in a great van with people who were among my very best friends in the world, whose support, encouragement, camaraderie and general craziness helped pull us through those 209 excruciating miles.  It was an experience I will never forget.

But this year, things are different.  My running has been crap.  I still have this damn butt issue that I think is just never going to go away.  And after last year's experience, I'm just plain scared.  And to top it off, I'm just getting over a cold now, which kept me from running over the past few days.  And my ankle is still sore from when I, in a state of semi-drunkeness combined with lack of adequate lighting, fell off the boardwalk in Fire Island several weeks ago.

When I realized that RTB was fast approaching about a month ago, I tried to ramp up my running a bit.  I've met this with some very limited success.  Last week, I joined the Front Runners on the Saturday long run.  It was supposed to be an 18-miler, from W. 73rd Street around the northern tip of Manhattan.  I started off the run kind of following my running buddies Mikey and Matt.  But after about 4-5 miles I realized that there was just no way I could keep up with them for 18 miles.  So I fell back a little, and I started running with Jim.

Jim promptly got us lost.  Ugh, I was so annoyed.  Not because of where we ended up, though.  He had led us into Inwood Hill Park, at the very northernmost tip of Manhattan.  It was my first time in the park and it was actually quite nice, with some pretty dramatic views.  Its valleys, boulders and ridges were apparently formed by glaciers thousands of years ago and seem virtually untouched since then.  I was happy to have discovered this new part of New York City that I had never known of.

I was annoyed, though, that our 18-miler was going to turn into a 20-miler.  However, we ended up accidentally taking a shortcut, which cut about a mile and a half off from our run, so we were back on course without that much added mileage.  I was so relieved.  At ten miles into our run, though, I began to feel like I had had enough.  I was thinking of places to turn off and just take the subway back.  The last 5 miles of the planned route had us going along the last five miles of the New York City Marathon, and I couldn't imagine going up that endless 5th Avenue hill.  In the back of my mind, I thought maybe I would run to Marcus Garvey Park (around mile 13.5) and just call it a day.

About 12.5 miles in, Jim clipped his foot on the uneven sidewalk and fell, scraping himself up a bit.  He was fine, but that was the end of his run.  (One mildly amusing sidenote: several people witnessed the incident and told Jim to call a lawyer.  Jim and I are both lawyers!)  I did not trip.  But I was handed the perfect excuse to cut my own run short.  I decided to hitch a ride back to the start with Jim, ostensibly to make sure he was OK, but in reality, I just had enough.  I went back to the church, somewhat disappointed and ashamed that I couldn't finish the long run.

That afternoon, though, I forced myself to go outside and finish the last six miles.  It was slow.  And instead of the gentle incline of 5th Avenue and the rolling hills of Central Park, I did my six miles with Dane on the pancake-flat boardwalk in the Jersey Shore.  I wasn't proud of my running that day, but at least I got in my miles.  I viewed it as a small victory in getting back, slowly, into shape.

The Tuesday afterwards I made myself go to the outdoor Central Park workout.  It was my first workout since May or June, and it was a tough one:  two times 25 minutes of nonstop hill running.  Just up and down and up and down Harlem Hill, continuously for 25 minutes.  The first time I did ok, but the second one, I pretty much fell apart.  The awful thing about this workout was that since it was just going back and forth a bunch of times up and down the hill, everyone who was running downhill could see the pain and agony on my face as I struggled to trudge uphill.  Many people offered words of encouragement--"Keep it up, Dave!"--but I just wanted to hide in a hole somewhere.  The only thing that kept me going was my fear of being lapped by Josh and Rich.  Each time I reached the bottom, I contemplated stopping and cutting the run short, but I felt that would be even more embarrassing.  So I just kept going, slowly, through the 25 minutes of agony.

With last week's disappointments, though, came some runs that I thought were pretty successful.  On Wednesday's fun run, I ran the full six-mile loop with Matt.  When I got to Harlem Hill this time, I charged up it like a speed demon, doing whatever I could to redeem myself after the prior day's disappointing workout.  It felt so great, so exhilarating, to be able to climb with such power.  And then, when we hit the last mile or so, Matt and I kicked it up even more.  It felt like an all-out race, but I didn't let myself fall back.  WOW!  I had almost forgotten how it felt to run fast.  It was so much fun!  Matt's Garmin said we finished that last mile in 5:53...amazing!  I haven't run a mile that fast in a very, very, very long time.  It made me feel like I'm back, back to running!

And on Saturday, I ran the Fitness Magazine 4-Miler.  It wasn't one of my faster 4-milers, but I think I did respectably well.  It was the first race in a long time where I pushed myself.  My final time was 27:02, or a 6:45 pace (splits were 6:46, 6:41, :59, 6:36).  I'm encouraged, though, because I know I've been getting faster, and I know I can do even better.

I just don't think I can do much better by Friday, when I have to run 31 miles.  :-/

*                                  *                                       *

The evening after Dane and I ran our six miles on the boardwalk in Jersey, we went to Jimmy's Italian Restaurant in Asbury Park with Josh and Chris.  Jimmy's is one of those old school, old world New Jersey Italian restaurants where you would maybe expect to see Tony Soprano sitting at the next table.  They serve classic Italian dishes in hearty portions.  I got the linguine with broccoli rabe and sausage and Chris got the lasagne, pictured below.  The food was among the best Italian that I've had in a very long time.  Josh got the veal marsala, which was soooo good.  I never order veal because, you know, the whole animal cruelty thing.  But every time I taste a little bit, I feel like I've been missing out on a little bit of heaven.  

24-Hour Half Ironman

I did my first Half Ironman this weekend!  Well, not really.  But within 24 hours, I did 14-mile run, a 70-mile bike ride, and a one-mile ocean swim, all with some good friends.  I think I felt just as exhausted afterwards as I would have if it were a real half ironman.  But I definitely had more fun.

On Saturday, I did my first long run of the season.  I received a horrifying reminder last week from Mikey B that the Reach the Beach Relay was just four and a half weeks away.  RTB is a 200-mile relay race that starts on the northern edge of New Hampshire's White Mountains, and winds its way through fields, lakesides, moutaintop vistas, and many, many, many small towns, to eventually finish at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire's little slice of the Atlantic oceanfront.  A normal Reach the Beach team consists of 12 runners, each running three legs of varying distances to cover the 200 miles.  This year will be my fourth year running RTB, and my second year as part of an Ultra team ("Team FRNY Ultragays!").  The Ultra teams consist of just six runners, running six legs each.  Each runner will cover between 27 and 44 miles.  You can see why I'd be nervous that it's just four weeks away.

So I guess I need to get in shape.  The official Front Runners Long Run this weekend was 14 miles, from Rutgers Church, down Park Avenue and across the Brooklyn Bridge and back.  This route took advantage of Summer Streets, where the city closed down Park Ave to traffic for three Saturdays in August.  I thought this would be the perfect first long run of the season since the many traffic lights along the way would mean frequent breaks.  My plan was to go and hope that someone would be up for running some sloooow miles with me.

Luckily Michael O showed up and we decided to run together.  It was the perfect relaxed pace for me, and I got to catch up on all of the good club gossip that I've been missing out on.  :-)  Running with Michael is always fun because he has such great stories to tell, and it makes the miles go by so much quicker.

I'm not gonna lie, though.  This was my first long run since the Brooklyn Half, and it really felt like my first long run.  At mile 12, the two of us walked for a few minutes.  But in the end, we finished, with plenty of time for bagels at the church afterwards, and I felt pretty good.  For the next four weeks, I'm planning on beefing up my running, doing a full 6 miles (or more) on Wednesdays, and maybe even doing the Tuesday hill workouts (starting out slowly).  In four weeks, 27 miles will be a snap.

*                              *                                   *

Forty-five minutes after we left the fun run on Saturday, Rachel, Mike and I met up again--this time, with our biking gear on the Westside Highway to go on our ride to Asbury Park.  The plan was to bike down to the World Trade Center PATH station, take the train to Newark, and then bike down from Newark to Asbury Park.  Getting out to Newark Penn Station took us a little longer than expected, and we didn't really start our bike ride under about 2:45.

The first 20 miles were the worst part of the trip.  It was very urban, somewhat technical, and not particularly fun.  I suppose there's no better way, though, to get out of Newark (other than, of course, taking the NJ Transit further South, but that feels like cheating).  About 10 miles into the ride, we had a little picnic of Clif Bars and Gu in Rahway, where we took this picture:

Then we were off again.  At about mile 20, we hit one of the highlights of the ride, which was crossing the Victory Bridge over the Raritan River in New Jersey.  The bridge connects Perth Amboy to the North and Sayreville to the South.  With a 440 feet span, it has the distinction of being the longest precast cantilever segmental bridge in the country (whatever that means).  It was also the hardest hill climb in an otherwise completely flat course.

(This isn't my picture, but it's a pretty one of the bridge)

It was around this time that I got my first flat tire.  I didn't notice it pop or anything, I just felt something wasn't quite right.  Mike was riding behind me and he actually pointed out to me that I got a flat.  It wasn't really a big deal, since I had changed a flat before and I brought two spare tubes with me.  It was actually a nice little break from riding, and I got to practice changing a flat.  This was my first rear-wheel flat, so Rachel had to show me how to disengage the chain from the gears.  But other than that, it was a breeze and we were soon on our way again.

Two miles later,  I got a second flat, this time in my front wheel.  I couldn't believe it.  I had gone hundreds of miles with only one flat tire, and then all of a sudden I get two flats in 10 minutes?  What are the odds?  This time, I must have hit or run over something, because I suddenly heard a very loud hissing sound coming from below, and in a matter of a few seconds all the air was gone.  I had an extra spare tube, so again, it was no problem, and we were on our way again.

Then we got a little lost.  Our cue sheet told us to turn left on Cheesequake Road from Bordentown Ave in Old Bridge, NJ.  Well, apparently Cheesequake Road intersects with Bordentown Ave at two different locations, about a mile apart.  So that took us a while to figure out.  And then we had to renavigate because the cue sheet  told us to go on Old Water Works Road, which, we found out a little too late, was an unpaved road.  Ugh.  Fortunately, my new cell phone has a fancy GPS function, so we were not left stranded.

About 35 miles into our ride, we hit our first segment of the Henry Hudson Bike Trail.  The 22-mile trail transverses Monmouth County, New Jersey, from the marshy regions of the Bayshore to the woods and fields of Marlboro and Freehold, NJ.  Much of the trail is tree-lined, with some pretty views of surrounding wetlands, streams and fields.  By this time, it was starting to get a little dark.  It wasn't too bad, but the treetops blocked what little light there was.

Around mile 42, we made a stop in Keansburg, NJ for some pizza.  It felt good to fuel up and rest our legs a bit.

Our planned route had us switching over from the Henry Hudson Bike Path to the Bayshore Trail, a scenic bike path the hugs the waterfront of the Raritan Bay, and then across the Highland Bridge into Sea Bright (on the northern, barrier peninsula part of the Jersey Shore).  A random guy passing by in a truck told us that it was just a straight shot on Route 36 that would bring us directly to the Highland Bridge.  I'm not sure why, but we decided to take his advice, even though it deviated from out map.  Big mistake.  Before we knew it, we were on Route 36/Memorial Parkway, a scary highway with really fast cars and barely any shoulder.  Not a good place to be as the sun was setting.

Fortunately, this was about the time that I got my third flat tire.  Now, when this happened, I kind of thought to myself, "OMG, we're all doomed."  We're in the middle of a highway, 20 miles away from our destination, with no idea how to get there and I keep getting flat tires every few miles.  As I changed my flat, starting to get nervous about the whole situation, Mike looks again at the GPS on my phone.  He found a new route for us, taking us off the highway, across the Navesink River, into Rumson, and across the Shrewsbury River Bridge into the Southern part of Sea Bright.

It turned out that the new route Mike found not only allowed us to escape the scary highway, but it brought us to what I thought was the biggest highlight of the ride, the Oceanic Bridge.  The 2,712 foot bridge connects Rumson and Middletown over the Navesink River.  There's a marina by the bridge, and it all just looked really spectacular.  I wish I took a picture, but the one here gives some sort of idea.

Shortly after we crossed the bridge, we had FINALLY made our way to the Jersey Shore!  But we were still about 10 miles away from Asbury Park.  The ride from Sea Bright to Asbury, though, was a pleasant one, well lit and a straight shot down Ocean Avenue, and it's a route that we had all covered much of during the Metroman Triathlon.

As we rode down Ocean Ave, I felt energized and started pedaling stronger.  I went over a bump, and seconds later I heard Rachel calling my name.  Apparently something had fell from my bike.  Mike circled around and went to see what it was.  It turned out that my WALLET had fallen from my bag, which I had left unzipped since my flat tire about five miles ago!  Wow, I was glad Rachel caught that.  And I was glad that it didn't fall out about 2 miles earlier, when we were biking on the darker residential roads.  And I was glad that my keys, in the same unzipped pocked, didn't fall out.  Disaster (barely) averted!!

Off we go again.  As we reach Long Brach (about 8 miles from Asbury), we got ANOTHER flat!  This time it was Mike's tire, though.  I was so happy that, for once, it wasn't me who got the flat!  Since Mike had given me his spare tube, he had to use Rachel's.  Which meant that, for our last 8 miles, we had no more spares!

But finally, after 70 miles, four flat tires, and many, many, many hours, we made it to Asbury Park!  By that time, we were all completely physically drained.  But we were so happy we made it.  We were also famished.  So we biked directly to Old Man Rafferty's, where the other patrons' and waiters' jaws dropped when we told them we biked in from Newark.  We each had a delicious (and big!) dinner, topped off with two slices of their decadent desserts (peanut butter silk and rocky road cake)!  Yummmmm!  It was a great end to a wonderful, crazy and exhausting day.

*                              *                                   *

So one of us had the bright idea to do a swim race the next morning.  I don't think any of us could believe we were actually going to go through with it.  But sure enough, we all woke up at 6:15 Sunday morning to bike the 7 miles from Asbury to Sea Girt for the 15th Annual Sea Girt Ocean Mile.

To say my entire body was sore from the run and the bike ride the day before was an understatement.  I figured, though, that I could do the swim at an easy pace with no pressure.  My legs felt kind of like Jello, so there would not be much kicking.

When we got to Sea Girt, the ocean didn't seem too bad.  Alison, who lives in Monmouth Beach, also came down for the swim.  She said the water was quite choppy today.  But again, it didn't seem so bad to me.

I don't remember if I said this before, but I'm becoming quite the pro at running into the water and diving underneath the waves.  Just a couple of months ago, I couldn't make myself go under the waves at all, it just terrified me to much to have the waving crashing over me.  But now I think it's actually kind of fun.

Once we got into the water, though, it was like the waves didn't stop.  On my previous swims, we would just swim out past the waves and then the rest of the swim would be pretty smooth.  Not this time.  I finally realized what Alison meant by "choppy."  I felt like I was in a clothes dryer being tumbled around.  There was no way to escape it.  I kept going up and down, up and down, and getting pushed around by the water.  It was so hard, I couldn't swim in a straight line.  And to make things worse, there were absolutely no buoys on the course to help guide the way--only one at the start and two waaaaayyy down at the turnaround point, so they might as well have been invisible because they were half a mile away and I couldn't see where they were for most of the swim.

I honestly didn't know if I could finish it.  The field of swimmers had drastically thinned out, and I was just starting out the swim and couldn't see where the buoys were at the turn.  I tried to calm myself mentally when I realized that I would probably have to swim the whole race with no other swimmers anywhere near me.  For a moment, I got nervous, thinking that the lifeguards with with the rest of the swimmers, and I was all by myself.  It was a little bit terrifying.  And, my goggles were super fogged up, so it was hard to see where I was going.  And every time I stopped swimming to take the goggles off so I could see, I ended up swallowing a big gulp of seawater.  So it was easier to just put my head down and swim, hoping I was going in the right direction.

Eventually, some of the faster swimmers started coming toward me, which made me realize I was going in the right direction and I was approaching the turnaround.  A while later, I finally made it to the bouys, turned around, and headed back again.

But, again, there were no buoys on the course, and I had no idea where I was going, and the waves were pushing me in all different directions.  Probably 5 minutes after the turnaround, a lifeguard on a canoe stopped me.  He asked if I had already done the turnaround.  I said yes.  So he asked me why I was swimming back toward the bouys that marked the turn. I was so confused.  It took me a second to figure out what had happenned, but apparently the waves had pushed me around a full 180 degrees without me noticing it.  The lifeguard pointed me in the right direction, and sent me off, shouting out: "Concentrate on your navigation!"  How embarrassing!

I still couldn't see where that damn buoy was that marked the end.  A few moments later there was another lifeguard.  I asked her if I was going in the right direction, and she said I was.  Then I asked her if I was the last swimmer.  She laughed and said, "Not at all!"  This made me feel a lot better.  Of course, I spent the next few minutes wondering if she was lying to me, so I asked the next lifeguard the same thing, and he also said I wasn't.  By this time I had seen the buoy and was able to focus on finishing.  I could see the huge crowd of finishers gathered on the beach--and knowing that Mike, Rachel and Alison were there, I tried as hard as I could to show them a strong finish.  I heard them screaming my name as I exited the water and ran as fast as I could on my wobbly legs to the finish line.  As I ran by them, I knew they had been standing there for about twenty minutes waiting for me, but I was just so glad to get out of that water and finish.  

Of course, I forgot to look at my time as I finished, but I think it was around 49 minutes.  My slowest one-mile swim ever, and a full 15 minutes slower than my swim last week.  My place, I think, was 127 out of 145.    Still towards the bottom, but definitely not in last place.  I was happy, though.  This was probably my most challenging swim ever, and I made it.  Even better, it meant that I was done with exercising for the weekend!

Born to Tri and a Different Kind of Butt Issue

The other weekend I did the Born to Tri Sprint Triathlon, another tri in Asbury Park, NJ.  This one was a 500m ocean swim, 15 mile bike and 3.5 mile run.  It was also the same day as the NYRR Club Team Championships, which is usually a big race for Front Runners.  My running has been kind of sucky / nonexistent lately, though, so I decided to skip the race for the tri.

I went with my friend Andrew, who some of you might remember did the Jersey Shore Kickoff Triathlon with me in May.

The swim was a point-to-point swim, and the start was in the ocean (not on the beach).  I had mixed feelings about the start.  On the one hand, it meant that I didn't have to start the swim by diving into the crashing waves, a la Baywatch, which always makes me nervous.  But I also hate wasting all my energy treading water before the race even starts.  And the ocean start made the treading water even worse because the waves  kept making everyone crash into each other, and that meant getting kneed in the stomach a million times.  Very annoying.

The swim itself went very smoothly.  It was so short that it was over as soon as it started, and I was with the pack pretty much the whole time.  The bike ride was pretty uneventful, except that my bike is full of problems.  For one thing, my cyclocomputer is a piece of crap; the little sensor thing that registers how fast my wheel is spinning is held in place by just a little zip-tie, so it seems like every time I go over a small bump, it gets all out of alignment and stops telling me how fast I'm going.  Also, I've been meaning to have my bike checked out because I think there is a gear shifting problem.  When I shift from the big front gear to the small one, half of the time my chain shifts too much and falls off the gears.  Because of that, I usually just stay in the big front gear the whole time.  I'm guessing this is an easy alignment issue, so if someone knows how to fix it, please let me know.

At the end of my bike ride, I remembered advice that Chris Stoia had given me.  For about the last 20 seconds or so, I shifted my bike into the lowest gear and just spun my legs as fast as I could.  Apparently this gets your legs ready for the run by loosening them up and changing the blood flow or something.  I'm not sure I noticed a big difference, although I guess it didn't hurt.

The run for me was actually quite tough.  I haven't been running at all recently.  I was just hoping that I wouldn't have to walk--my last fun "run" the previous Wednesday turned out to be a disastrous 3-mile jog/walk (although it was around 90 degrees and humid).  However, I was happy that, as hard as the run was, I did pass a bunch of people, maybe 20 or so.  That was a good self-esteem booster.  But I did get passed by two people.  The first one was a woman.  She was fast, and just whizzed by me within the first half mile of my run.  I figured she was probably the first place woman, so I didn't really mind getting passed by her.  The second guy who passed me, though, I was annoyed about.  I passed him about 100 meters from the finish line; he looked like he was in bad shape.  But then, like 5 seconds after I passed him, he gets this burst of energy, sprints to the finish like it was a 60-meter dash, and leaves me in the dust.  I could sense that he was trying to humiliate me for having passed him.  But I didn't have the energy or desire to play his my-penis-is-so-big-because-I-smoked-you-at-the-finish game.  In retrospect, I should have just kicked his butt.

In the end, though, I was pleased with my performance.  I actually placed in the top half of my age group.  My bike and swim still need a lot of work.  But I'm getting more comfortable with both, and with practice, I think I'll see my times go down.  Here are my splits:

• Age place     14/31
• Overall place 81/273
• Swim rank     23/31
• Swim time     11:27.9
• Swim rate     1.73
• T-1           1:16.4
• Bike rank     16/31
• Bike          42:41.5
• Bike rate     19.7
• T-2           0:50.4
• Run rank      11/31
• Run time      22:45.4
• Run pace      7:15
• Total time    1:19:01.6

*                                *                            *

I mentioned in my earlier post that a group of us Front Runners spent the weekend at Derek's parents' house in Lockport, NY for the 100-mile relay.  What I forgot to mention was all the tasty food Derek's mom cooked for us.  Mrs. Petti is a whiz with the Crockpot, and had prepared for us a bunch of delicious slow-cooked dishes, including a tasty barbecue pulled pork.  It was so good that it inspired me to make my own.

I had never made pulled pork before, but the recipes online all made it sound really simple.  (1) take a big-ass piece of pork, (2) cook it for hours and hours, (3) shred it, (4) add some barbecue sauce, and (5) cook it a little more.

So, I started by going to the place I always go to whenever I want a big-ass hunk of meat, Western Beef.  Despite its name, they also have every cut of pork imaginable.  I ended up getting a pork shoulder (also called a "pork butt".  It was about eight pounds of meat.  For under 10 bucks.  Wow.

When I got home, I discovered that my eight-pound butt was about four pounds too big for my crockpot.  So I broke out my ginormous 22-quart stock pot, the only thing I had that it would fit into.  Other than a chopped up onion and some bay leaves, I pretty much filled up the pot with water, threw in the butt, set it on simmer, and just forgot about it for the next six hours.

Six hours later, the meat was pretty much falling apart.  It was soooo tender.  The skin was barely any firmer than Jell-o.  (Despite being tempted to turn the skin into some tasty Chinese deliciousness, I ended up just throwing it out.  So sad!)  The meat pretty much shredded itself.  

With the meat shredded, and the bones and skin disposed of, my pork butt was able to fit in the crockpot for one final cooking, this time slathered with lots of barbecue sauce.  I cheated, and just used sauce from a bottle; it was fine.  But now that I know how easy it is to make pulled pork, and how much of the taste depends on the sauce, I'm going to make my own sauce the next time I make it.

I paired the pork with some homemade coleslaw--another first for me, but it was so easy!  Shredded cabbage and carrots, mixed together with a dressing of vinegar, lowfat mayo, salt, sugar, ground celery seeds and dry mustard.  Also, I had some cheesy grits, which were just grits boiled with some and parmesan cheese (I think chedder would have been better, though).  It turned out to be a great barbecue meal, which was almost as good as Mrs. Petti's.

*                                *                            *

This past Sunday I did the Ray Licata Memorial Swim in Long Branch, NJ.  It was a one-mile ocean swim.  I'm becoming quite comfortable with ocean swimming now.  

The swim was pretty uneventful except for one thing: before the swim even started, I almost wound up breaking my nose.  It happened right before the race, as I was trying to get into the water for a little practice swim.  Just as I was getting in, and before I realized what was happening, a huge wave started coming right at me.  I hesitated, not knowing if I should stand or dive underneath it.  At the last millisecond, I decided to go underneath.  But it was too late.  I'm not sure what happened next, but the wave came crashing down on my head and before I knew it I had kneed myself in the face.  Ouch.  I seriously thought I broke my nose.  It hurt!  And I was bleeding a little bit.  But the shock, numbness and blood soon subsided.  Amazingly, I did not freak out about the waves after that.  Instead, I turned around, faced the waves, and went right in.

Still, not very fast, though.  I finished the one-mile swim in 34:59, which placed me 193 out of 225.  One of these days, I will break out of the bottom 25%.  Or at least the bottom 15%.

One nice thing about the race was that I ended up seeing and meeting a bunch of Team New York Aquatics people who were also doing the swim.  Afterwards, we all went to Chat & Nibble, one of my favorite breakfast spots in Asbury Park, where we celebrated our achievements with a nice cold bottle of Veuve Cliquot!

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This Saturday I'm planning a 65-mile bike ride from Newark to Asbury Park with Mike and Rachel.  We're going to stay overnight and then on Sunday morning do a one-mile ocean swim in Sea Girt, NJ.  Let me know if you'd like to join us!

Lockport 100-Mile Relay

This past weekend, some Front Runner friends and I traveled up to the Buffalo area to run in the Lockport 100-Mile Relay.  The race was a 100-mile relay race that takes place entirely on a 400-meter outdoor track at the Emmet Belknap Middle School in Lockport. Coincidentally, this is the track where Front Runner Derek Petti trained when he was growing up in Lockport.  Teams consisted of up to 10 runners, with each runner running any distance in 400m increments before handing the baton to the next runner.  The runners could run in any order.  Five Front Runners went up to Lockport for the relay: me, Derek, Kelsey, Mike and John.  We stayed with Derek's parents who were the best hosts ever.

I was a little concerned about this relay for a number of reasons.  

1. I literally only ran once in the past month.  And that last run was the VCTC 2x2 Relay, where I only ran two miles and felt awful afterwards, despite having gotten a steroid injection the week before.  My last run before that was the Pride Run on June 26.  So (a) I had no idea if my injury had gotten any better, and (b) even if it had gotten better, I was in no shape to do a race, let alone one on the track where people would be running really fast.

2. There were only five Front Runners confirmed for the race.  Supposedly, there were some people in Lockport who had said they may join our team, but they didn't sound particularly reliable, and there were only three of them.  So for every person less than 10 that we had on our team, we'd have to run extra miles.  Uhhh, the last time I ran more than six miles was in April...  If we got stuck with just five runners, that would mean 20 miles each.  Yikes.

3.  Somehow, the other four Front Runners coming were all super, super, super fast.  Now, I know they didn't care about how fast I was, and that everyone was more concerned with having fun than with winning, but the insecure part of me really didn't want to disappoint the team.  I also didn't want to push myself so hard that I would risk messing up my already-injured butt/hamstring.  So I was just nervous.

So, yeah, looking back, I don't know if it was the smartest thing for me to agree to do this race.  But at the same time, I was really excited about it and thought it would be a lot of fun.

The race started Sunday morning at 8am.  At about 7:45, we received word that two of our runners from Lockport were not going to be able to make it.  Uh oh...  But in the last moments before the starting horn sounded, we picked up some random people, who just happened to want to join a team.  Mitch, 14 years old; Judy, Julie and Ron, all 40-ish; and Drew, 18 and about to start Brown University in the Fall.  I was so relieved that we somehow were able to scrape together a full team.

The original plan was that were were going to start out just running 400m each, and just going through the team 1-10.  But Judy came up with a brilliant strategy that made so much more sense: we'd split up into two groups of five, and each group would run a set number of 400s while the other group rested/recovered.  This way, the runners didn't have to worry about cooling down too much after each run, but they could take a nice break after a few sets.  So we formed two groups: Judy, John, Drew, Ron and Mitch went first, followed by Julie, me, Mike, Kelsey and Derek.  Each group of five would do eight sets of 400s.  Five times.  For a grand total of 400 laps.  Our goal was to average no more than 90 seconds per lap (or six-minute miles).  Oyyy...

My first 400 was about 54 minutes after the start of the race.  I got the baton from Julie, ran as fast as I could, and and handed off to Mike.  I did it in 78 seconds.  OMG, it was too fast.  I was like heaving at the end of it.  There was no way I'd be able to keep this up for 40 laps.  My butt felt fine, but cardiovascularly, I felt like crap.  I told myself I don't need to run that fast; just try to hit 90 seconds.  So the next lap (about 5-6 minutes later), I tried to ease off the pace a little bit.  Still, 78 seconds.  This time I was heaving again, and I was already soaked with sweat even though I was only two laps in and it was barely 9am.  Around lap 5, I just couldn't wait for the set of eight to be over.  I was already dreading the prospect of doing this 40 times.  My splits for the first eight 400s:
78 sec
78
81
79
82
82
84
82

It was so good to rest after that.  I wanted the rest to last forever, but I knew I  had less than an hour (the other group had 10 miles to run).  The next set of eight 400s was considerably harder.  My legs were sore from the 2 miles I had just run (at 5:25 pace).  The sun was starting to come out.  There was a strong headwind at the back straightaway.  It was not fun.  My splits were slower, but I was trying much harder:
85
81
82
82
84
84
85
84

After our second set, our group of five decided it was too hard on our bodies to keep doing 400m repeats.  So we switched it up to do 4 sets of 800.  By this point, we had settled comfortably into first place.  The second place team, made up of track and cross country runners from Iroquois High School, were a mile or two behind us, so we figured we could sacrifice a little speed to be able to run at a more comfortable pace (that is, as long we we didn't run the 800s at 400m pace!).  I definitely slowed down for my 800s.  Even so, they seemed so much harder.  At this point it was about noon, and the sun was shining bright.  And we had to run into that damn headwind twice.  It was so hard running to the transition area and knowing that I wouldn't be able to pass the baton off to Mike.  It was brutal, and my splits showed:
101/92 (my legs felt like jello on that first lap!)
91/88
91/93
94/89

Then the fourth set came.  My legs were so tired.  I started to doubt whether I could finish.  Halfway through the set, Kelsey told me not to worry about my splits.  There was still another set to go, and it was better for me to finish than for me totally run out of steam.  So the last two 800s I took kind of slow.  We were really far ahead of the Iroquois team, and it was good not to have the pressure of having every second count.  Still, those were some pretty slow splits...I was feeling like I was starting to fall apart.
93/93
98/95
99/103
98/100

When it came to my last set, I couldn't wait for the race to be over.  We decided to switch back to 400s, which I was happy about.  But what made me even happier was to hear that Drew was volunteering to run extra laps.  I immediately enlisted him to run four of my eight 400s.  We alternated laps, so I had a luxurious 11 minutes or so to recover between my 400s.
93
87
89

After my third 400, we all realized that it was entirely possible for the team to finish the whole relay in under nine hours.  If we did it, it would be huge....our original goal of 90-second laps (six minute pace) would have meant finishing in 10 hours.  So we were possibly going to beat that by a whole hour...but we had only a few seconds to spare.  The pressure was too much for me.  And frankly, I didn't really want to run another lap.  Fortunately, Drew was more than happy to run one more lap for me.  That final set of laps was among the fastest of the day.  Derek ran the very last lap, his 41st 400 of the day, at a smoking 66 seconds!

And then, there we had it.  100 miles later, five members of Front Runners New York, joined by five residents of Lockport, New York, won the Lockport 100-Mile Relay in a jaw-dropping 8:58:27 -- that's a 5:23 per mile pace -- beating both our original goal and the second place team by over an hour!!!  We were ecstatic.  We were so glad it was over.  And we all so proud of our achievement.  At that moment, we were the stars of the race, and of the whole town.  I was just so, so happy to be part of such an amazing team.

Later that day, we were awarded with our "1st Place" medals.  It's my first time being first place overall in any running event, ever.  And the fact that I got to share with nine of the coolest people ever made it even more special.  Thanks, guys!!!

One final note.  After I got home, I did my usual post-race OCD number crunching, and I figured that my average lap was 89.47 seconds, a bit under the 90 second goal I had set for myself.  So I was especially pleased.  Thanks to everyone involved who made this such a great experience for me!