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November 14, 2016

A Weekend of Trail Running

I ran three trail races over the past three days as part of the Dirt Cheap Stage Race. While I ran a lot this summer it had been a month since my last race, and two months since I last ran on trails.

The first stage was three mile night run in the dark of the woods. The weekend didn’t get off to the best start as my time of 35:12 was over a minute slower than last year.

Things went a better during the five point five mile run on the second day. I finished in 46:53 which is a bit over two minutes faster than I ran this stage last year.

Sunday morning was the final and longest stage of the race. And as the weekend went on, I kept doing better. I finished the 11 mile stage in 1:50:10, a full ten minutes quicker than my time from last year. The final run was also my best placement as the 65th fastest runner.

From last year, I dropped over eleven minutes from my overall time to finish all three stages in 3:12:17 and the top 35th percentile. My next race is the Buffalo Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning.

November 4, 2016

Women dominate the Half Marathon

Earlier this year I ran in the Right to Run 19k in Seneca Falls. The race itself is an homage to the nineteenth amendment which gave women the right to vote and had its roots in this small town in the finger lakes. Partially as a result of this branding, there were a lot of women in the race.

This was noted at the starting line when a special shout out was given to the men who choose to join in this race. At the time I thought that this wasn’t all that unusual as it felt like the women usually outnumbered the men. In fact, every previous road race that I had run in 2016 (Runnin’ O’ the Green 5 mile, Spring Forwards Distance Run 15k, and Flower City Half) had all been majority female.

Over the course of a full year this pattern evened out some as most races I participated in were closer to 50/50

But for the half marathon (the traditional distance closest to 19k) a different pattern emerged. In addition to the 19k, the women outnumbered the men in both half marathons I ran this year. At three further events (Buffalo Marathon, Shoreline Triathlon, and the Rochester Marathon) a 13.1 mile race was held concurrently and all of these events were also majority female.

In fact I looked for every Half Marathon I could find anywhere in the Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Finger Lakes areas and every single one of them was majority female. In fact women made up over 59% of the field in all but two of these races.

I don’t know why the gender split is so large, but women have definitely proven that they have the right to run half marathons…

October 9, 2016

CanLake 50k

On Saturday I finished the CanLake 50k for the second time. Last year I finished in 6:08, and this year (after running 31 miles) I improved upon my time by finishing in 6:07.

The start of the race almost went too well. Off the starting line I found myself in fifth place. I assumed that I just had a lucky start and would be passed by soon, but I then finished the first mile without anyone passing me. One girl passed me in the second mile, but by mile five I was still in sixth place and it was clear that this start was not a fluke.

I was feeling good, but was a bit concerned that I might have started to fast. Fortunately the next section of the course was an out and back, so I could see that while I was towards the front, the main field was only a tiny bit behind me.

Typically the finger lakes region is very pretty, but this year the landscape was marred by Trump signs. It was a bit disquieting having to run through such a concentration of hate.

At the Middlesex aid station (mile 12) I picked up my hydration pack and took on some solid food. This would be the last nutrition that I took during the race, in a strategy that was markedly different from last year.

Bare Hill is the most difficult part of the 50k course, and I feel that knowing what to expect I handled it much better than last year. I moved steadily up the hill, and had no difficulty breaking into a run after reaching the summit.

At mile 20 a horse ran out ahead of me and joined the race.

I knew all along the final ten miles were going to be the hardest part of the race, but I pushed on. Fortunately the final mile and a half of the race is all downhill so it is easy to finish the race strong.

September 22, 2016

Rochester Marathon

On Sunday I ran the Rochester Marathon for the third straight year. After being a bit disappointed in my performance in this race last year, I decided to change my strategy a bit by carrying my own water and by starting with a slower pace group. Unfortunately this didn’t really help, and my time of 5:34 was actually a bit slower than last time.

I started out with the 4:20 pace group, which is a slow start for me, but after the second hill at mile six I started to fall behind. I finished the first half in 2:17 which is the slowest opening 13.1 that I have ever run. The second half of the race was mostly just dragging myself to the finish line. Hopefully I can get things back on track for the Canandaigua Lake 50k in October.