Category Archives: sports

Race Recap: Chicago Marathon ’18

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Chicago Marathon '18

So there I was, flat on the ground screaming in pain in the middle of Grant Park. It was not my best look.

I’d been doing the post-race shuffle towards bag check, when suddenly my calf buckled with the worst cramp of my life. As I began yelping and draped myself onto a lamp post, a bunch of people swooped in. Cramp? I nodded, eyes closed. Get her some salt. A runner quickly put my finger in a tube of salt and shoved it in my mouth, while a race volunteer stretched out my leg. This is gonna hurt. But hey, free massage! After what seemed like an eternity, the cramp finally subsided, everyone cleared out, and I was left holding an open beer. I was having an AWESOME day.

Let me back up a bit to explain how I got there, and how this is really my own damn fault.

Chicago Marathon has time qualification standards that are 15 min or so looser than the Boston Marathon standards. You can also get in through the lottery with decent odds (1 in 3). After running a BQ squeaker time last year in NYC, I knew I needed to shave off at least a couple more minutes and figured I’d do it in Chicago, known for being fast and flat. Plus, I lived in Chicago for 3 years, and still have free housing, I mean, friends in the area.

With a date in early Oct, this means a 4-month training cycle starts in early June. Here is how mine went:

  • June: Gradually recovering from the Dirty German 50K in May.
  • July: Man, it’s really hot in here…and Chicago’s still a long way off…
  • August: Trip on a highly technical sidewalk near Greenwood, bashes in right knee. Take a couple weeks off.
  • September: I deserve a break, let’s go on vacation for 2.5 weeks and eat lots of ice cream and drink lots of beer!
  • October: Oh *@$#, THON IS HERE.

So, while I love seeing everyone’s runs on Strava, Peer Pressure Track Club was making me feel pretty insecure and underprepared. I knew my weekly mileage had been on the low side for me, and my long runs hadn’t been all that long. (In fact, Strava sends you a video after big races, and it told me in cold numbers that I ran 38.9 mile weeks, with a longest run of 18 miles.) On the plus side, I was really well-rested and my knee was feeling 100% again. I also knew that in the spring, I’d been consistently cranking out really long runs and higher mileage. (Thank you, UMTG!) Time to repeat that adage that it’s better to be undertrained and at the start, than overtrained and injured?

In the days leading up to the race, the forecast got rainier and rainier. Fri night in Chicago, there were heavy thunderstorms, and I could see flash flooding in the streets. I checked 4 weather websites obsessively, then on Sat, the NYT told me close your weather app, there is nothing you can do to change the weather. Chagrined, I decided to focus on how much better rain is than 90 degree heat.

Race day, there was a little drizzle as I headed in at a leisurely 6:30 am for a 7:30 am start. (Take that, Staten Island!) The skyscrapers surrounding the park were cloaked with romantic, potentially chafe-inducing mist. But the rain held back, and soon enough, I’d stripped off my trash bag and we were off. It rained lightly during the race, but at that point, I wasn’t worried about staying warm.

The course takes you through 20 Chicago neighborhoods, and from drag queens in Boystown to the arches of Chinatown, it is a 26.2 mile block party the whole way. Zero complaints about scenery or crowd support. Shout-out to Carla and Jack who cheered at mile 8, I was really excited to see familiar faces! And to the other people who yelled “Go Prospect Park!” at me unexpectedly, I appreciate that too, I just couldn’t react in time.

I went out with a conservative goal and a negative split pace band, knowing that I’d be much happier if I finished strong rather than hanging on for dear life. However, Chicago skyscrapers are notorious for causing GPS drift, so I decided to turn auto-lap off on my Garmin, and manually split at every mile marker. I ignored instantaneous pace, instead relying on feel and I sang in my head to keep a steady cadence. I also knew that every block in Chicago is 1/8 mile, so I could roughly calculate my pace based on that. My breathing was steady, and the miles ticked off easily. It was the best I’ve ever felt during a race, which made me wonder if I was really racing.

Here’s the unorthodox part: I didn’t want to screw with my pacing, it wasn’t hot, and I never felt thirsty. So I didn’t drink anything on course. In general, I don’t need a lot of water or fuel while running, and I raced the Jersey City half last month on a sunny hot day with no water. And I brought fuel with me (I make my own) which has some water and salt in it. But basically, no stops, no water.

At the halfway mark, I slowly began speeding up. At mile 22, I decided I wasn’t suffering enough and it was time to really crank it up. At mile 25, I realized I could hit sub 3:25 if I sucked it up and ran hard up the course’s one inconveniently placed hill at mile 26. Final time: 3:24:53.

After the race, you get handed all the usual stuff, plus a Goose Island beer that is only available to marathon finishers. The can even has a spot where you can write in your time! Then you go to the post-race “Mile 27” party, where you redeem your drink ticket for ANOTHER beer. (NYRR, take note.) This no doubt contributed to my massive cramp, but hey, I have a story to tell.

I’ve been told that next time if I drink some water, I can probably shave off another 10 minutes. OH REALLY?

Conclusions: If you train consistently year-round, you can trust in your training, even if the last couple months were less than ideal. Drink something on the course, and don’t reach for the beer first post-race. And use a pace band with a negative split strategy.

Chicago Marathon Beer Can and Medal
Chicago Marathon Beer Can and Medal

A Marathon for Justice

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Disney Marathon

All right, here goes. On Nov. 5th, I am running the NYC Marathon for Legal Services NYC. A spot opened up last minute, and I decided to seize the opportunity to be the change I want to see in the world. That means I’m fundraising at least $3500 to fund legal defenses and advocacy for immigrants, tenants, women, students, workers, veterans, the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses. More

On Running, or How To Do Anything in Life

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Running NYC

“When you’re running… there’s a little person that talks to you and that little person says, ‘Oh, I’m tired. My lung’s about to pop. Oh, I’m so hurt; I’m so tired. There’s no way I can possibly continue.’ And you want to quit, right? That person… If you learn how to defeat that person when you’re running, you will learn how to not quit when things get hard in your life.”

– Will Smith

My general philosophy in life is to try to say yes, as much as possible (so long as it’s not something patently illegal or something I’ll obviously regret). Sometimes this leads me to faraway safaris in Sri Lanka. Sometimes this leads me to running in circles.

Back in late April, a friend said that he was going to sign up for a marathon, and asked if I wanted to do it too. Without thinking too much about it, I said yes. After all, I bike regularly, and go for a short run every week…er, month or so, how hard can running a marathon be? Step 1, you start running. Step 2…there is no step 2. Am I right??

So I logged into the Runkeeper account that I’d set up years ago and used once, and signed up for their beginner marathon training program. Four runs each week, with the first week starting with manageable 4 mile runs and a long run of 8 miles on Saturday. I added the next month’s running schedule to my Google calendar, highlighted in red, and tried really hard to either schedule activities on nights when I wasn’t running or shift runs to alternate days if I knew I’d be busy. Each week, I checked the weather and if conditions were challenging for running (thunderstorms), I would slot time in other parts of the day, like early mornings or late evenings. Sometimes I would end up skipping runs, but it would be anticipated and unavoidable, not due to poor planning.

In July, the furnaces hit New York, and running became a sluggish, molasses-paced crawl to the finish. I realized that switching my runs from late afternoons to early mornings would mean more tolerable running temperatures. The only problem was getting out of bed. I’d tried setting alarms in the past to get up early for a run, and had failed every time. This time though, I forced myself to go to bed earlier (10:30 pm at the latest) and when the alarm went off, I reminded myself that while getting up now was painful, running in the brutal summer heat would be even worse. So I’d best stop dawdling and get going.

By November, I had the opposite problem. Temperatures were dropping precipitously, and an ever-lengthening night meant that it was doubly difficult to pull myself out of bed when it was cold AND dark. I’d hit the snooze button once, sigh, then force myself into the chilly air, where no amount of layering could prevent my fingers from being numb after 120 minutes outside.

But I kept doing it. And every time, it got a little easier. Running a marathon, as it turns out, is less an accomplishment of physical training and more a feat of psychological endurance. While you can certainly push yourself to run until winded, for the most part, running a marathon requires a lot of long but slow runs, done at a comfortable pace where you can easily hold a conversation with someone. In other words, running is not the difficult part. The real challenge is the discipline to manage your schedule and get out of bed.
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Hiking the Männlichen Summit

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View from Männlichen into the Grindelwald valley

In German, the word for hiking is wandern, and can be expanded to mean anything from migrating, journeying and wandering. And indeed, you can do quite a lot of hiking in Switzerland simply by wandering from signpost to signpost on the country’s 50,000 km of marked trails. Even the smallest mountain outposts are easily found via an intricate system of wanderwege routes (marked by yellow signs) found between lakes, valleys and towns, higher altitude bergwege mountain paths (marked by white-red-white blazes), and rugged alpine routen trails (marked by white & blue blazes) that can include steep drop-offs and sections with cables or handholds.

Since the phrase “relaxing vacation” is not in our vocabulary, Britton and I spent our last day in Berner-Oberland hiking. The guide at Balmer’s suggested taking the train from Interlaken to Wengen (with a train transfer at Lauterbrunnen). Round-trip tickets for this cost about CHF 25. From Wengen (1,274 m), we would hike the route to In Gassen and Männlichen (2,227 m), then walk along the mountain ridge to Kleine Scheidegg (2,061 m), and finally trek downhill from Kleine Scheidegg toward Wengernalp back to Wengen.  On the Jungfraubahnen Wandern map, that would be routes 46, 33 and 41.

The morning was marked with a heavy downpour and ominously thick cloud cover, and I silently fretted about what we were going to do if the rain didn’t ease. Fortunately, the skies cleared at about 10:30 am, and we set off with backpacks full of bread, cheese, salame and light clothing. Personally, I think that hiking in sneakers is often safer than using thick-soled hiking boots because you will have a better feel for the terrain. Besides, hiking boots are heavy, and that extra weight goes a long way when you are scaling a mountain. The same goes for hiking poles; they can be helpful if you’re going downhill, but for the most part, you’re better off using your hands for balance and feet to feel the ground. I had to laugh at the hikers decked out in shiny layers of North Face and poles on flat sections of trail. Newbs.
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Questionable Life Choices: Canyoning the Grimsel Pass

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC9VPAcIskU&hl=en_US&fs=1] YouTube

Frothy water churned beneath me as I teetered at the edge of a rain-slicked ravine, inspecting the rocky canyon walls below. “I can do this. I can do this.” I mumbled to myself. “Wait, why am I jumping off of a perfectly good ledge?” The guide gave me a look and gently said, “Why don’t you take your hand off the rope first? All right, 3…2…1…JUMP!” I closed my eyes, tucked in my knees and threw myself into the water. It was just a bit after 9 am.

Just a couple days before, Britton had been clamoring about going hang gliding in Interlaken. Waving a fistful of brochures for the dozens of extreme sports agencies in the area, she wanted to follow up her skydiving experience from two weeks earlier with hang gliding in the Alps. You can also do things like parasailing (flying with a parachute rather than rigid wings), whitewater rafting and even zorbing (rolling down a hill in a giant plastic ball – no joke). Then we stumbled upon the sport of canyoning, where you have to get through a whitewater filled canyon using a variety of climbing, jumping and swimming techniques. Without thinking about it for too long, I agreed to sign up, and soon we were carted off to the Grimsel canyon, about an hour southeast of Interlaken.

At the foot of the mountain, we changed into wetsuits, boots, jackets, life vests and helmets. Outdoor Interlaken kindly labels all of their helmets, so that you can distinguish people from each other. Mine was labeled a fairly innocuous “Digi-Bo,” but Britton’s was labeled “Stu Pitt,” and the other labels included “Harry Balzac,” “Master Bates” and “Ewok.” Our band of intrepid adventurers included about ten Americans and That Guy with Dreadlocks who hailed from New Zealand.
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Mountain Biking the Lauterbrunnen Valley

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View of the Lauterbrunnen valley on the way to Stechelberg

For CHF 35, you can rent mountain bikes from Balmer’s hostel, which is a decent deal for a full day of biking. (Hint: we were later informed by other travelers that you can go around the corner to rent bikes for just CHF 20.) Armed with a map of the Jungfrau region, the activities guide at Balmer’s suggested biking to Wildersil, through Zweilutschinen to Lauterbrunnen, where we could stop for lunch. From Lauterbrunnen, you can bike to Stechelberg, take the gondola up to Murren, then bike down the mountain back to Lauterbrunnen and Interlaken. The route is mostly gravel, with some short sections of dirt and pavement.

The trek from Interlaken (567 m) to Wildersil is flat and fast, about 15 minutes or so of biking. Once you pass Wildersil though, everything goes rapidly uphill. The toughest ascent of the route is a bit outside of Wildersil. Remember, there is no shame in getting off your bike to walk up the hill, unless your other friend is leaving you in the dust.
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