Date: January 18, 2024 Location: Vancouver, WA Distance: 10k Chip Time: 1:08:14 Pace: 10:58/mi
New year, new races. We’ll start with where my 2023 race extravaganza began, the Race for Warmth in Vancouver. The biggest difference besides me running a 10k instead of a 5k is the weather. Last year it was around 21°F at start time; this year it was more like 50°F. Because of that, however, I wore fewer layers (just the race shirt and shorts) and was still just as cold. I also forgot to anti-chafe the nips before the race and I just need to remind me, and remind you: ANTI-CHAFE YER NIPS.
I know last year I talked about swag and atmosphere and all that but I barely thought about that at all for this run, which is probably a good thing. Atmosphere was great, people seemed chill and eager for the first race of 2024 (well, for some of us at least). The only swag I retrieved was free coffee–Relevant Coffee in Vancouver was giving out hot coffee and free cans of cold brew. They gave me two after the race and they were both delicious. Good work.
As for the race itself, you can see from the image above that my splits were kind of weird. I went off too fast as usual, and probably would’ve had more even splits if I had just slowed down. But I wanted to get a sub-60 10k and my PR is 1:02, so I knew it was possible. But not a week after I basically didn’t run for an entire week because of the snow/ice storm! Come on man!
I do find it interesting that after the 3rd mile I bumped up into a new positive split, like I had hit Stage 2 of my run or something. But I certainly did not have enough in the tank for a PR-worthy run at all. I had run fast at parkrun the day before too, which likely didn’t help. It was a tough 10k, a lot of bits of walking and my legs were tired by the first half. With that in mind, 1:08 is surprisingly good and I hope is a solid indicator of my fitness progress for 2024. I didn’t fuel during the run, though I did eat an hour beforehand. I think I would’ve done a bit better if I had gotten a gel or something in me right before the race, though.
Oh and I did stop momentarily to take a picture of a rainbow. 🌈
little bby rainbow
Afterwards there was music and a little bit of soup, and people giving away Celsius drinks. I swear I’ve never seen Celsius out in the wild; I’ve only seen it at races where people give me one for free. How do they make money?
I did drive directly to Safeway after the race so I could buy food, because I was ravenous and a small bowl of soup, albeit good soup, was not enough. I was also craving Goldfish crackers. There’s nothing like walking into a grocery store looking and smelling all disheveled from a 10k race.
There shouldn’t be a lot of these race recaps this year. Last year I spent over $1,000 on races, which is insane. I’ve got a few lined up this year but nothing like 2023. I’ll save my money and run parkruns instead.
The next race I have planned is the Shamrock Run half marathon, though I may sign up for something in February. We’ll see! Until then.
Well, this month went slightly differently than I had expected. On the first of the month, I woke up to my car window smashed and the whole thing nearly stolen. Since then I’ve been working to get it fixed, but since I own a Hyundai, one of the cars that has been targeted in “TikTok thefts,” getting parts has taken some time. More annoying, however, is that I had to drive out of my way to find a auto body shop that didn’t require me to drug test my car. Yes, that’s right, my car. Apparently so many people have been doing drugs inside of stolen cars that if any drug use is detected in a car, it’s … bad. Not entirely sure how it’s bad, considering none of this is my fucking fault in the first place, but them’s the breaks.
What a life.
This means I haven’t been to parkrun for a few weeks. The window has a plastic drop cloth over it, so it’s protected from the rain, but driving with a broken window is frustrating. I’ve had a lot of back and forth with my Progressive rep and the auto shop and it’s been … slow going, to say the least.
My only race this month was the Holiday Half, which didn’t go as I expected. With a week or two of hindsight now I think it was fine, I was just frustrated by my lack of progress. A year of running after years of not means that my body is still trying to process what’s been going on, and I think running a second half marathon in December was just too much for it. That plus the stress of the car debacle. I’m proud of myself for getting out there though, even if the day was miserably rainy and cold.
Post-half marathon reaction selfie.
Since the half I’ve been taking it easy. Like, really easy. Turned off my daily suggestions and just ran a few 5ks at easy paces. My right leg is giving me a little bit of trouble, likely some soreness from the half, and I want to let it heal up before I try to work my way back up to proper mileage. This week (the last week of 2023) I’m likely not going to run at all, in fact. Strava is telling me that I’ve got 6 miles until I hit the 100km badge for December. We’ll see if I make it.
If I’ve learned anything this year, and especially this last month, it’s that I get to decide how I want this to work. In other words, I don’t need to go fast, or far, to be a runner. Garmin Coach was trying to push my pace up, which might be good for a long term benefit or progression, but it’s also fine to just run at a slow, easy pace. I’m never going to be an elite runner, never going to run a sub-5 minute mile (probably never going to run a sub-8 minute mile). I’m just here to get my cardio in and see the sights.
So, that’s it for 2023. Last year, 2022, my total mileage, running and walking, was 450 miles. I ran a grand total of 26 times. This year, I ran–just ran–800 miles, over 244 activities. I ran two half marathons, one quarter marathon, one 10k, one 4 miler, and 20 5ks. I ran 34 parkruns and met a whole new group of people. I pushed myself more than I have in a decade, woke up countless times before the sunrise to lace up and head out the door. I have enough running kit to last me another decade.
I wish I could give some grand advice about how I turned this corner; the truth is, I just did it. Nike was right. You just go do it. But, you know, what “it” is isn’t what you think. It’s not 0-60mph in 2.6 seconds. It’s 30-35 for the rest of your life.
So, who knows what 2024 will bring. I have another half marathon lined up–the Shamrock Run, which was supposed to be my first half marathon ever, but now will be my 3rd. I also am technically signed up for the 2024 Portland Marathon, the full thing, the whole kit and kaboodle, but we’ll see if I feel up to actually running for 5 hours. 2023 was a jumpstart kind of year in terms of my fitness; 2024 is more like brushing my teeth, but for my … feet. I really need to work on my analogies.
Anyway. That’s my 2023. My 40th year of life. Eleven months that went pretty well, and then December. 😆
Well. This was a rough one. My last race of 2023, the finale of my mission to run run run run run, and this one was … not it.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud that I finished it. I just thought I had more in me.
Pre-Race
There was a lot going on in my life prior to running this thing. The most egregious being my car, which was broken into about a week prior. A lot more stress than usual. And then, my company’s holiday party was the night before the run. I had planned to go, not drink, sing a karaoke song, and then leave. I didn’t want to go. Turnover at my office is so bad that I don’t know who is who anymore. I don’t remember anyone’s names, because I only see them in emails. So I can’t put names to faces. I guess this is partially my fault for working at home, but still.
I ended up bailing because I just wasn’t feeling it. I also hung out with friends at an arcade in Vancouver a few days prior, and then one of my friends revealed later that he had gotten covid after we hung out, which didn’t help matters. The first time I got covid, it was last year, at the company holiday party. The last thing I wanted to do was GIVE people covid the next year! (Note: I don’t have covid. I tested and all that.)
Anyway, a lot going on, but I ended up staying home and getting to bed at a good hour. Slept fine, woke up, got all my stuff together. It was super rainy so I did something Incredibly Smart: I put big band-aids over my nipples. This was the best idea I’ve ever had (that I stole from someone on YouTube, I’m sure). Had plenty of layers on so no one was like, “Hey, look at that guy over there! He clearly has band-aids over his nipples! Let’s get him!”
I wore three layers (short sleeve, long sleeve, pullover, all athletic of course) and that was a bad idea, but it wasn’t terrible. I also wore a beanie–the pullover and beanie were both Boise State apparel, and at one aid station some kid was like, “Go Broncos” and I made phonemes that may have sounded like words but were really just me attempting to speak while my body was actively fighting me.
I had three Clif bars and I ate one in the morning. My pre-run fueling isn’t great generally so I was trying to fix that. I think it helped, but not as much as I had hoped. More on that later.
Drove to the spot where the shuttle buses were. I’m glad I got on a bus (they were free) but it did not help at all, because traffic was still bad. I think we spent 30-40 minutes trying to get to a place that was 5 minutes away, but if I had driven there it would’ve been even longer. I realized on the bus that I had forgotten A) my water bottle, and B) my gloves. The latter was fine, but the former made me nervous, because I had no hydration now other than fueling stations. Foot Traffic is trying to go cupless for their events, too, so I felt bad grabbing cups every aid station.
Pre-race face.
Atmosphere
The area was very well set up. Everyone was soaked because it was raining like crazy. There were TWO different coffee vendors. Two! Probably a genius move so people don’t get stuck in long lines, but it also felt like a double booking. Two big tents, one for food and one for beer. Tents in these things always feel so weird. It’s like, you walk in, there’s food, there’s sponsor tables with the gaudiest kitsch splayed out that you’ll grab and then throw away a week later (c.f. my first few months this year). Then, standing tables. I don’t know, it just seems so … I don’t know. I wish I was a better writer so I could make a witty comparison.
Speaking of food, there were a couple of options. A lot of few options, if that makes sense. They had like five big plates full of bagels, but no cream cheese, and the bagels weren’t even cut. Naturally, nobody ate the bagels. We know how bagels work, and this is not how they work, so we avoided them. No bananas, either. I was surprised by that. No fruit at all from what I could tell. A little disappointing, I love eating an orange wedge after a run.
The Race
So, right up front, I was disappointed in my performance for this race. I think you can see why from the pace graph above. From about the halfway point onward, I could not get my shit together. I started out in the 2:15 pacer group, and honestly thought I could keep up with them, or at least still have them in my sights by the end. But boy was I wrong.
At the start of the run, there was a big puddle. A street-sized puddle. Most people ran around it, I ran through it. I had one of those “oh shit” moments where I remembered the rule to never drive through standing water, cause you don’t know how deep it is. I was worried that I would step through a sinkhole and break my leg. I didn’t. But I could have!
The first 3 miles were business as usual. The course started with a pretty big incline, but I powered through it. Then, as you can see, the rest of the first half of the course was a gradual decline. Easy peasy. But, since I had forgotten my water bottle, I had to use aid stations for water. This meant stopping to drink, because while I wanted to go fast, I also thought it would be fine to walk for a few seconds while drinking water. This wasn’t my downfall, by the way, it’s just an annoyance.
You can see that basically by the halfway point, my tolerance for running was coming to an end. I walked a lot. I didn’t realize at the time that the course was now going uphill. (I didn’t notice the elevation change that much other than the big incline/decline at the start, really.) So a lot of my fatigue could be attributed to that.
Regardless, I hit some kind of wall pretty damn hard around mile 9. That was the mile where I thought, “I’m never doing this again.” I had run all these races over the past year, grew so much as a runner, but in the end, I think 10k is my upper in terms of pushing myself. I could be wrong–I’ll probably completely flip on this in a couple of months–but it just doesn’t seem worth it. You ultrarunners and marathoners can keep it. I’ll stick around here, in the 30-60 minute running range.
So, mile 9 through to the end is a blur of running and walking. A lot of do-si-dos with other runners who are doing run/walk cycles. I feel like this would be a great time to get to know people, if we weren’t all actively dying.
Then, thankfully, gracefully, the end of the course was downhill. I had absolutely nothing left in the tank, but I was able to push myself a bit heading downhill. You can see my pace pick up. I was also running by the Adidas store and I didn’t want it to judge me. Sorry I’m running in Saucony’s, Adidas! But even the downhill wasn’t enough, and I kept slowing to a walk. I did manage to push myself through the final 10th of a mile though.
So: disappointed. My time was 11 minutes slower than I wanted. I just couldn’t hang on to my energy levels, which were dipping faster than I could replenish them. I’m proud of myself for finishing and for only being a couple of minutes slower than my previous half, but I still wish I was better than the last one, you know? It felt like my progress has dwindled a bit lately.
Post-race face.
Post-Race
Standing tables and uncut bagels. Delicious hot cider. A Rogue pilsner I drank too fast. A lot of those heat radiator things, like you see outside restaurants, but none of them worked. People handing out Celsius energy drinks. Do people even buy those things? I’ve only ever gotten them for free.
The wildest thing was that nobody was handing out medals. Instead, the medals were just on a table, all the different course lengths, and people were rummaging through them like a bargain bin at Goodwill. It was a very strange sight, all these exhausted people pawing through metals and lanyards. Oh, and the paint on the medals was peeling. That seemed like a bigger faux pas to me.
I went through the lines, got the drinks, got the foods (except the bagels, which were Incorrect), then got on the shuttle bus and went home.
And that’s 2023 folks. That’s the end of my race year. Started absolutely freezing, ended absolutely drenched. What a wild New Years resolution.
My itinerary next year has FAR fewer races planned, mostly because I would go bankrupt if I did this a second year in a row. But there will be some surprises, I’m sure.
Well, we’ve made it. Tomorrow, December 10th, I will be running my last official race: the Holiday Half. This will cap my 2023, which began well, went well, and then ended shittily. Is this the default for my life? Perhaps, but them’s the breaks.
I’ll be honest: I really don’t want to run this. My patience with this year had quickly run out, and the forecast for the 10th is rainy. And not just a light drizzle, it’s supposed to rain pretty flagrantly for the two+ hours I’ll be out there plodding along. What’s worse, the forecast for the days after are sunny. This is following days upon days of rain in Portland.
But I’m going to do it because I paid for it, goddammit. I paid a lot of money to run this half marathon and I’ll do it even if I walk most of it.
My training plan has been abandoned and I guess I’m “playing it by ear,” or really “running it by feet.” Here are my goals:
G Goal: 2:12:25 / 10:06/mi A Goal: 2:15:00 / 10:18/mi B Goal: 2:20:00 / 10:41/mi C Goal: Just do the damn thing. *G Goal is my Garmin Goal, aka the time Garmin predicts I can do.
These are all within my ability, I believe. 10:06 I know I can maintain for a few miles at least. Maybe even 13! I suspect my Garmin Coach training helped bolster my pace a bit. My stomach has been weird lately due to stress and poor eating because I’m broke because of my car getting broken into. Lots of stuff happening recently which has soured my overall life experience.
So, no real pace plan other than to try and keep a good one. I’m going to try, try, try my damnedest to start slow, but we all know how these things go. I’d love a negative split but I don’t know if my body is capable of it yet.
For fuel I have Clif bars and Powerade. Breakfast of champions. Honestly not sure if they will be adequate or not. They certainly didn’t feel adequate on my 10 mile run, but they settled a lot better than gels.
I appreciate that I’ve been at this long enough that I’m approaching a second half marathon with a bit of a blase attitude. It’s still so surprising that it’s December already. I’ve tipped over the 1,200 mile club for ORRC, and am well on course to hit 800 miles running for the year. Overall, huge success. Learned a lot about myself, about my ability to persevere even when I don’t wanna.
I’ll have a race report tomorrow. My last one of 2023. Until then.
Since I am running a straight blog.joshbelville.com/ site now, I backed up my old site but forgot to make a proper .xml export of my WordPress posts there. So I have them … in strange, obscure SQL format that I don't want to spent time trying to extract.
That means I’ve got a couple of race reports that are lost, so I figured I’d just do a recap of the month in general.
Mileage
Running: 100.31 miles Walking: 25.40 miles
Happy to surpass the 100 mile mark. I don’t know if I’ll be doing that again anytime soon, to be honest, unless the Holiday Half pushes me over the line. I’m also fine with fewer walking miles. I really only got to 25 because I was logging every time I went to the store.
Turkey Trots
I only ran two races in November, and both were turkey trots. The first was a rematch at Portland International Raceway with the Hood to Coast 5k there. That was at night and was very cold. It felt colder than last year.
My chip time was 32:33 but that was for 3.34 miles, which the course absolutely is, because I double checked on Google maps. Regardless I really felt good on this run and was going at a nice clip for the first two miles.
The second one was the next morning and was the ORRC Turkey Trot. This was a four mile run at the Oregon Zoo. It started rather abruptly, which was very fun, and the first half was very downhill, with the second half running up that hill (cue Kate Bush here). It was tough, especially after running fast the night before. But we did get to see some mountain goats chilling out at the entrance. My time was 50:31 but it was a fun run and I was dying going back up the hills.
parkruns
Three parkruns this month, #s 31-33. Nothing spectacular about any of them, really. I was running them slowly due to my Garmin Coach half marathon training. 11/18 was college themed for gameday or something like that, I don’t know, but I repped Boise State because A) I had some BSU clothing and B) I don’t have any Portland State gear.
Garmin Coach
Lastly, I signed up for a half marathon training plan through Garmin Coach, using Coach Amy. This was more or less a bad idea. It wasn’t terrible, but she did bump my “easy” pace to a 10:55/mi average, making all of my runs a little more difficult and basically preventing any of them from falling into my actual Zone 2 easy run heart rate. I’ve since stopped the training plan, but that happened in December so I technically can’t talk about it on this post.
That was it for November! The only race I have in December is the Holiday Half, which I will of course recap here in ye olde blog. Until then!
Well, it finally happened. On January 1 of this year I decided to write out a list of New Years resolutions, a last ditch sort of thing as I oftentimes find resolutions to be difficult to keep and so what’s the point of writing them. But I did, and the very first resolution I wrote was “Run a half marathon (and/or a 5k every month).” The first half was a pipe dream, really; I wrote it because I knew it was a great challenge, but also a challenge that was a little out of my wheelhouse. But these are resolutions, not the Ten Commandments; you write stuff down, some of it doesn’t stick, and that’s okay.
Then, I started running 5ks and got into parkrun and my running life spiraled out of control. In a good way, I mean. If you count parkrun, by April I had run 14 different events, including four 5ks (or three 5ks and one 3 miler, stupid Couve Clover Run). It was somewhere in April that I got an email from the Portland Marathon stating that their prices were about to go up. I was feeling confident and decided to sign up.
Now, I’ve run the damn thing, finally, four months later. How did it go?
Well … good. And bad. But mostly good!
Pre-Race
The night before I packed my drop bag with all the necessities. Anti-chafe? Check. Towel for my sweaty face afterward? Check. Change of clothes? Check.
Then, it was off to bed at 9pm for a fitful night of sleep. I thought I slept like shit but Garmin says I did fine. Agree to disagree.
In the morning I got up, did the prerequisite toilet time, ate half a PB & honey sandwich, and started the trek to the venue. It’s always weird to walk through the industrial district (inner eastside Portland) in the dark. What was weirder though is that as I was getting closer to the Hawthorne Bridge, I could hear some thumping EDM music coming from a building, and for a moment I wondered if it was some club that was having an all night rave party or something. But I think it was just people setting up to cheer for the race. I think.
Got to the place. A ton of porta potties. A Lollapalooza-level of toilets. Did the Pre-Race Poop, took off my warm clothes, put all my gels in the pockets of my running shorts, gave the poor harried women in the drop bag tent my bag, and then headed to the race starting point. Marathoners were on the south side of Salmon St, half marathoners were on the north side.
Didn’t do any running warmup, just some dynamic stretches and stuff like that. I wanted to save my energy for the run itself.
Atmosphere
The energy of the crowd was pretty great. Weirdly enough, there were fewer registrants for this race than for the Shamrock Run. Only 6,680 finishers and I think a hundred or so DNFs. I’m pretty sure Shamrock had over 10,000 runners. (Which is also low for Shamrock, historically.) I know everyone’s leaving Portland because we’re full of drug users and Crime™, but apparently the people who left were all runners.
The vibe of this run was somewhat formal. It felt like a proper running event, as opposed to the Foot Traffic Flat, which felt like some runners getting together to have a good time. My quarter marathon at the Flat ended in front of somebody’s big farm house. However, the vibe between the west side of Portland and the east side for this run couldn’t be more different. West side we ran through downtown a bit and then down Naito Parkway, a big fancy street. Then it was Macadam, which is also a big street for lots of cars and such. There were homes but they were over there.
Then we crossed the Sellwood Bridge, which was beautiful and I wish I had taken a photo of the view. We were then in east Portland, running through neighborhood, with houses and people! It was very nice. Lastly, we ran through the inner eastside industrial district I mentioned earlier, which was pretty bleh except for the small bit we ran on the eastside Esplanade, by OMSI. I’ve run that route a bunch and it’s nice, though I do kind of wish we had kept going up the Esplanade cause it runs right on the water.
Then we were back downtown with the big tall buildings. Lots of different Portland vibes!
The Race
Not sure how to talk about distance races like these yet. As you can see from the above image, my pace was fairly stable through the first eight miles. Coincidentally, eight miles is the longest distance I had run before the half. Are those two things related? Probably.
What’s more the culprit of the second half of the … half, is fueling. I’ve read and watched a bunch on proper fueling for a long run but one thing nobody tells you about it is how much it sucks. It really sucks to ingest food while you are running, even if it’s energy gels.
Basically my fueling plan was what it says on the Gu energy gel packet: take one five minutes before the start, and then every 45 minutes afterward. I was also drinking LIV hydration lemon lime flavor powder stuff. This was mixed into my handheld water bottle. The powder packet says to mix it with 16 oz of water. My water bottle was only 12 oz, so the hydration was a little more concentrated than it should’ve been. Also, 12 oz is too small for me for this distance. I didn’t finish my water in the bottle but I would’ve preferred to have 16oz that was better diluted.
So, the fuel was the hydration powder + 3 Gu energy gels. Strawberry banana and 2x raspberry lemonade. Took one before the race started and it was fine. Took another 45 min in and it was okay. Took my 3rd one at 1:30 and basically started feeling nauseous from that point onward. It felt like I had a bunch of blobs of goo in my stomach, which was true, and my stomach was like “What the fuck is this? What am I supposed to do with this?”
In hindsight, I think I took too many gels. I just feel like nutrition advice with these types of things is geared toward skinny, fitter athletes. Like, maybe you need a Gu every 30-45 minutes if you’re running a 7 minute mile and you weigh 130lbs. For me, it just felt like too much. Plus the sloshing of hydration water … it was all too much.
As you can tell from the above diagram, I walked a lot from mile 8 onward. Way more than I wanted to, but every time I started running my stomach would feel a little … lurchy. I listened to my body and settled down a bit, which helped, but which also wrecked my A Goal time and even my sub-2:20 time goal. Ah well.
The east side of the run also had some surprise hills, including one fairly steep “fuck off” hill that I feel like most of us walked. It was also around that hill that I saw Jenny Conlee, the keyboardist of the Decemberists, playing an accordion for the crowd. That was nice!
So, the big takeaway of this is nutrition and fueling during the run. Something I could’ve trained for months ago but decided to eat M&Ms and drink Powerade instead. Which wasn’t bad! But running long distance at a tempo pace makes it nearly impossible for me to chew food. Could’ve walked; didn’t. But then I did. A lot. So I don’t fuckin’ know, folks.
Once I hit 13 miles, the marathon app told me that I was right about at 2:29 and that I was projected to finish at like 2:29:56. So I hauled ass to the finish line, or at least it felt like I did. I saw a video a friend of mine took close to the finish line and I look like I am running to the bathroom. C’est la vie!
One more thing: anti-chafe. It did me good. My nipples are fine, my inner thighs are fine. The only thing that hurts are my legs and the middle of my upper back, which is weird.
Post-Race
the banan kiss my medal
Just a shit-ton of goodies. Food and drinks and a free Voodoo doughnut and a beer. Ran into friends and chatted. There was an alpaca that I forgot to pet. Really great stuff. I (thankfully) didn’t feel too damaged from the run. My legs hurt, yes, but not too bad. Maybe I will change my tune tomorrow morning.
Also just wanted to mention that the Portland Marathon had the best safety pins I’ve ever used. They were quality! Probably brand new, which, okay, bad for the environment, but man they were nice.
I walked home after chatting with friends, which was an adventure on its own. Nothing like running a long distance and then walking some more. Though I did meet a guy while traversing the Hawthorne Bridge who had run the full marathon and was straight up hobbling. Guy looked wrecked. In good spirits though. Such is the way with marathons, I guess.
And that’s that. My first half marathon. Would I do it again? … Well …
I signed up for the Holiday Half in December. Did that a while ago, but always with the intention of downgrading it to a 5 or 10k if this half really sucked.
Right now, I don’t have an answer. This was tough, and while I do like to push myself, I don’t feel a need to do it with distance. The idea of running a full marathon sounds like shit right now. To run another half?…
We’ll see. Give me a week.
The next race is the ORRC Dual Duel, which is supposed to be a relay run but they have a 10k solo option which is what I’m doing. In two weeks! It’s just doing laps around a track as far as I know. I think, perhaps, that I’ve gone insane.
Beautiful temperatures and clear sky for parkrun this morning. My official time was 35:11; being one second off on my Strava is pretty impressive. I’m usually a few seconds off one way or another.
This wasn’t a very flashy parkrun for me. Garmin’s suggested workout was 33 minutes base, which I did plus the extra to make it 5k. Tomorrow’s the half marathon so I can’t go all out … but I did sprint the last .11 of a mile this morning. You gotta! The parkrun crew felt extra lively today too, not sure why. Maybe we’re all just excited for Spooky Season.
After getting home and showered and changed, I took a walk over to the Oregon Convention Center and the Portland Marathon Expo, picking up my bib and swag and then spending too much money on merch. I can’t help it; I was a broke kid who grew up into a broke adult, and I’ve gone to a lot of events where I couldn’t afford to buy any merch. Now I’ve got a bit of money so I’m gonna buy some merch dammit!
So this is it, my last run before I run 13.1 miles tomorrow morning. I wish I had some words of wisdom but I don’t. I’m just eager to get it going and see how my body responds to this level of pushing myself. Hopefully, well!
Time to relax for the rest of the day, get some more carbs in, and go to bed early.
First off, let’s get some time goals down, shall we? Set in stone for posterity.
S Goal: Whatever Garmin says. Right now it says 2:13:34, or a 10:12/mi pace. Typically you only do an A/B/C goal, but I add this one because the Garmin predictor seems insane to me. Maybe Garmin is right, maybe I can hold a 10:12/mi pace for 13 miles, but it also suggests my 5k race time is 27:08, which is an 8:44/mi pace. I tried that at the CVIM 5k and could only get one mile in before I had to stop. Really, I think the issue is less my biomechanical ability and more my mental ability. Reminds me of when I was trying to bench two plates. Took me forever because I had a mental block.
In any case, I’m not aiming for that goal.
A Goal: 2:18:30, or 10:34/mi pace. I know, 22 seconds between S Goal and A Goal. Doesn’t seem like that much, does it? I would’ve said the same thing a few months ago. Now, I know that those 22 seconds are the difference between a threshold run and a tempo run. This might be easier for me to hang onto for 13 miles, especially if I can start slow. I’ve got this one set up in Garmin’s PacePro plan for negative splits; hopefully the slow start will aid me in a faster finish.
B Goal: 2:30:00, or 11:27/mi. I really don’t want to be slower than 2:30, and I’m fairly confident I can keep this one up. My Foot Traffic Flat quarter marathon pace was 11:32/mi and my run/walk pace during the CVIM 5k was still around 10:00/mi so even if I have to walk sometimes, I’m sure I can keep my time below 2:30. Unless I have to take a big poop or my calves cramp up or something.
C Goal: C goal is always to just complete the damn thing. The race has a time limit (cause cars, bleh) which equates to a 30:00/mi pace for the half. So ultimately there is no way I will not finish this thing.
This morning I ran a 10k with an average 11:25/mi pace, and that was a tempo interval workout with recovery in between. I think the training over the past couple of months has me perfectly set up for anywhere between 10:00 and 11:30/mi pace. Now let’s just RUN THE DAMN THING ALREADY.
Fueling: I’ve done too little fuel training and the other night I realized I’m going to be running in shorts that only have little pockets for gels. I’ve been eating M&Ms. So we’ll have to figure this out.
This morning I trained with LIV hydration powder, lemon lime flavor (generously gifted to me at the CVIM 5k) and M&Ms. The powder was mixed into my Nathan handheld water bottle. It says to mix it with 16oz of water but I think the bottle only holds 10 or 12 ounces. In any case, that shit is tart. In a good way! Tart like wake me up tart. Seemed to hydrate me as well. I didn’t drink a ton because I’m trying to figure out how much to drink while I’m running. Water is easy but I don’t want to overload on electrolytes.
The M&Ms … well, I took them out of their usual packaging and put them in a sandwich bag. I did this because my plan was to put them in one of the side pockets of my running belt, and the bag is too long. But this backfired because the sandwich bag is too big and loose and the M&Ms were a pain in the ass to get. Also, a pain in the ass to chew and swallow. Gels are probably better. Also! About 3/4ths of the way through my run I stuffed the bag into my belt pocket but I actually put them in between my belt strap and my body, which meant they fell out and I lost them. 🙁
The good news is that M&Ms don’t mess with my stomach, and the hydration seemed to work fine. I did buy a Powerade as a backup.
Lastly, I decided to buy a Garmin heart rate chest strap, which I hopefully will get today and can test out tomorrow. My watch seems to have difficulty finding my heart rate sometimes, which is fine day-to-day but during a run I’d like it to be a little more precise. Plus I like gadgets, and I like data. I feel like I’m weirdly obsessed with my heartbeat. Like, the other night I was going to bed and I thought about how weird it is that right before your heart beats, some cavities in there fill up with blood. Isn’t that weird? Our entire body has this liquid coursing through it every day. And that liquid is made up in part by blood cells, which are made in the middle of your BONES. What?! You’d think there would be an organ or something, a blood organ, that makes all your red blood cells. Nope, it’s your god damn bones. The things that keep you upright!
Anyway, I’ll finish this thing no problem. The only real question is, how fast will I do it? Which … I guess is a question everyone asks because it’s running and not, like, painting a picture.
sponsored by pepsi, pepi, bebsi, pesu, pepcid, pespi, pepis, joe piscopo, and pepsi
I’m writing this during a brief bit of non-rain on Portland’s first real rainy day of the season. The first day of Fall was on the 23rd and we had a bit of rain almost immediately, but this morning was the type of insistent-yet-polite deluge that Portland is famous for, the kind of rain Fred Armisen would make fun of, maybe for a minute longer than he needs to. We don’t often get the sudden torrent that ends as quickly as it started, like on the east coast. Instead, our rain shuffles in with the quiet expectation of being known and seen and heard and smelled. Much like the hipsters of this city.
It’s September 25th, is what day it is. Yes, I am going to talk about running again. Yes, colloquially when I say “talking” I mean writing, but the sentence, “Yes, I am going to write about running again,” feels disconnected between me the writer and you the reader. If I say that I’m talking to you, it hits different than if I said I was writing to you. “I am writing you this letter” is something you’d hear at the beginning of a voiceover in a Ken Burns documentary. “I am writing you this letter to inform you that your dear nephew Ansel has pneumonia and is currently stretching his hands up to Heaven for God’s embrace.” People back then were depressed.
There’s a little over five days until I run 13.1 miles for a shiny medal and a beer before 10am. Yes, I bought a sticker. No, it’s not going on the back of my car. I told you, running is for me, not for you, which is why I’m writing to you ab—which is why I’m talking to you about it now. The sticker goes somewhere that I see most of the time. That’s the plan at least.
One of the interesting things about this whole process is that it is eerily reminiscent of rehearsing for a play. Training regularly, doing repetitive things over and over. Getting sick of it all and then, on another day, having an epiphany that makes the whole thing better. Currently I’m in the, “We just gotta get this in front of an audience,” part of rehearsal, when you’ve run the entire play so many times to no one that it’s almost frustrating. The director keeps giving you passive-aggressive notes like “Stand over there” and “Be better at acting.”
Hell, you’re even doing it with other people. With plays, everyone knows their parts and when you rehearse you become a cohesive whole capable of telling a two-hour story. With running, for me at least, we runners still all know our individual parts, but we’re separate, rehearsing for a play where we all do our own thing for an hour or two.
The wearing down is what helps negate the nervous energy. People still get nervous when they do a show, of course, but if you’ve rehearsed enough, then your nervousness slowly gets replaced with irritation. “I just want to do the show already!” you think as you make the same cross from downstage left to upstage right, where you then look at the flower pot poignantly as you say your line about how much you hate doors. In this example you’re doing a farce.
With running, the nervousness is about failure, about injury, about diarrhea. That sounds like a joke but it’s true. Every runner out there is worried they’re going to poop their pants on the run. Such camaraderie in that. Every runner knows that every other runner has worried about pooping their pants. It’s humanizing! If only we lived in a world where we knew that everyone was worried they were going to poop their pants, nuclear war would never have been invented. Oppenheimer would have been distracted, watching his scientists as they watched each other, all terrified of the Fart That Wasn’t.
But if you run, and you have a good routine set up, and you work hard, and build mileage, and maybe get a fiber supplement in every day but not on race day because if you get too much fiber it’s like the political horseshoe concept except both ends of the horseshoe are diarrhea—if you put in the work, then by the time you get to half marathon morning, you won’t be thinking, “I hope I don’t poop myself during the run.” Instead, you’ll be thinking, “I’m so sick of training for a half marathon, who cares if I shit myself, in fact I’m going to shit myself deliberately because I’m sick of training, I’ll be the goddamned GG Allin of this half marathon.”
And then before you know it you’ve already run the damn thing.
Thank you for reading The Belville Baguette. This post is public so feel free to share it.
I suspect there are mats at every mile of the course, so it won’t be real time tracking; instead, it’ll just let you know when I’ve reached various mileposts and at what time. I could set up LiveTrack on my Garmin watch but I don’t know how it works and I don’t really want to. There will be photographers on the course as well but my track record for getting a good photo of me during a race is pretty bad, so we’ll see if I end up looking majestic of majornstic.
Runs
Just a couple of races since last post. Blog entries if you wish to read them.
Nothing too exciting on this front, other than the half on Sunday, but that’s not in the past, that’s in the future! I’m a-gettin’ faster, little by little.
Punkins
I went to the Pumpkin Patch’s corn maze with my longtime friend and occasional argument-participant Missy last weekend. I got a free pass when I ran the Foot Traffic Flat in July, which started at the Pumpkin Patch. We saw the following:
punkins
corn
small animals
some other stuff
If you’re wondering if we got through the maze: we did. We ate pumpkin pie and two alright burgers and an apple cider float and two pumpkin spice beers and elote1 and then wandered in a corn maze for an hour and then on the drive home I was a little concerned that I would poop my pants. See, I told you runners think about this all the time!
We tried to take creepy photos of ourselves in the corn:
I think Missy wins this one.
Glasses
In other news, I have decided, after six long years, that perhaps it is time to get a new pair of glasses. I am going through Warby Parker (#NotAnAd); the try-ons are in the mail. Here’s the thing, folks: I’m a big tall dude with a big tall head. I don’t dislike the idea of wandering through an eyeglass store trying on pairs, but the truth of the matter is, my head too big. My head too big and it’s just easier to get Big Head Stuff online. Even my current glasses, which I like a lot, were the biggest pair they had available at America’s Best back in 2017, and they still look slightly narrow on my face.
The problem with Warby Parker is that I hate the phrase Warby Parker. It’s the Lollapalooza of eyewear names. Warby? If I was a newborn infant and you said out loud, “Your name is Warby,” I would immediately grow several trillion brain neurons with which to articulate the word, “No.” Apparently the name is taken from two names from a Jack Kerouac journal, not even an actual novel. It’s a venture capitalist brand started by venture capitalists and I’ll let you guess if they were all rich white men or not. I’ll give you a hint: they all started the company with seed money from Wharton School of Business.
But what can you do. Nobody’s hand-crafting glasses out of reclaimed beachwood and coke bottles ground into lenses, you know what I mean? Or maybe they are. But it’s easier for my big head to shop online. That’s where it’s easiest to get tall sized shirts, for example. It’s impossible to do this at the store. Last time I went to the Target at Mall 205 the men’s section looked like a rabid wolverine went on a rampage in there. I couldn’t find anything. The only section that looked decent were the Hadrian’s Wall of jeans.
So anyway, expect a future post with possible pictures of future eyewear candidates.
50/90
The 50/90 challenge ends this week and I think I’m tapped out on songs. I got 25, 25 lo-fi demos for potential cultivation. Here’s another if you’d like to listen. It’s called “it ends all lonesome.”
it ends all lonesome
you think you should care
drop all your worries
cut off your hair
they tell you it's hard
the wine chilled in ice
it ends all lonesome
but it feels rather nice
you fight this feeling
all dark in your gut
the days escape you
you're stuck in a rut
but it's not all bad
walks through your neighborhood
you fight this feeling
but it feels pretty good
of course there's closure
a door's gotta close
peel out in the driveway
in those last little throes
you can cry all day
almost as if by design
of course there's closure
and it feels pretty fine
The End
When next we meet, I will have a shiny new Portland (Half) Marathon finisher’s medal. I may have also ground my two legs into bloody pulps. We’ll see!
I could’ve sworn elote was spelled élote, but I can’t find proof of this online. I did however see a recipe for elote (aka Mexican street corn) which said it uses a “creamy mayo and sour cream mixture,” unlike the chunky mayo and sour cream mixtures I’ve seen … nowhere. Ever. ↩︎
Busy weekend! Just a quick parkrun overview: official time was 31:03. Didn’t really have a plan per se, but decided to giveit a good ol’ college try. My ultimate goal was to run kind of hard but not hard enough to completely destroy my body for the Sunday 5k. And in the end it worked out; my average pace was 10:00/mi and I actually achieved negative splits due to the first half being uphill. Once I hit the turnaround I decided to really hoof it and see what I could do going downhill. So 10:19, 10:01, and 9:50 were my mile paces, and once I hit the last bench (my little milestone post which also happens to be about .10 of a mile to the end I think), I pushed myself hard. 8:11 was my pace at the end. Pushing but not too much.
Then, I went to the corn maze at the Pumpkin Patch with my friend Missy. I got in for free because of my pass that I got for running the Foot Traffic Flat! Huzzah!
In case you were wondering if I was in love with pumpkin pie: I am, and we are very happy together.
We successfully navigated the corn maze and then I went home and then I went out for a friend’s birthday party. Had a couple of drinks, which I don’t recommend doing the night before a race. Thankfully I paced myself and didn’t stay out all night.
CVIM stands for Clackamas Volunteers in Medicine, by the way. I know you were wondering about that. The race benefits free healthcare to low income individuals in Clackamas County, Oregon, which is a great cause! I hope more people show up in the future.
This is the second time this race has been put on and so it was a very small crowd. Only 86 participants, most of them walking or running slowly, because I managed to get 19th place, which is … wild.
Pre-Race
After parkrun I drove to Oregon City, which I had never been to before. It is a lovely little town, and the Singer Hill Cafe, where I got my bib, was equally as lovely.
This is the library, with some type of religious building in the background. I sat and ate my breakfast from the cafe here–a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel, very tasty–and looked through my bag o’ swag.
Then, the next morning I … drove back to Oregon City. Sorry, this pre-race rundown isn’t that exciting. I did wear one of my pairs of running shorts, which I think is the first time I’ve done that for a race. They are pretty great, as long as I remember to put the anti-chafe stuff on my inner thighs. Which I did.
Swaaaag
One of the most surprising things was a hat! A baseball cap which, of course, does not fit me at all. No hats do. My head is the size of a small planet. But they also gave us some LIV hydration powder which I’ve never used before, and some lip balm. I appreciate when we get lip balm. All in a Clackamas Community College tote bag. I am flush with tote bags now.
After the race there were free Bombas socks and Vaseline moisturizer and cocoa butter lip balm. Two lip balms now! I am flush with lip balm. No medals for this one which made sense. Natural Grocers was there and gave out bags with some random stuff, mostly literature on how great they are. There was also a kiosk with a woman from United Healthcare to get people insurance if they need it I guess. She looked very bored to be there.
Atmosphere
When I arrived it almost looked like I was the only person there. A very small crowd of people, mostly much older people too. And a lot of groups of people who seemed to know each other. This is kind of a blessing and a curse for me; on one hand, it’s nice to have a smaller group race because it feels more personal (and often the gifts are better) but on the other hand, because so many people knew each other, I felt like an odd man out. But I wasn’t alone; there were some guys who were clearly good runners who also showed up and seemed like they were on their own. I think there are a lot of “lone wolf” runners out there; when I finished the Beaverton 5k and had to rush to get to parkrun right after, I noticed a lot of the singular people who were leaving early. People like me who show up, run, get medal and food, and leave.
It’s kind of a weird thing.
The Race
I’m around 90% sure that my time was ultimately determined by the amount of beers and lack of sleep I had last night, but the fact that I almost got sub-30 even after walking four or five times is a testament to my fitness progress. I started off strong–too strong, perhaps, as I was attempting to get a new PR. My mile 1 pace was 8:52, a new mile PR for me at least (and sub-9:00, woo), but I went off too fast and slowed down by a minute for the next two miles. However, the paces on those were 10:10 and 10:09, which is kind of surprising to me! I thought they would be more in the 11 minute range. Every time I started running after a short walk, my pace was well above 10 minutes.
I’m also getting good at sprinting to the finish. Not a proper sprint, mind you, but more of a … good hustle. So my extra .10 of a mile (.13 to be exact) was in the 8:21 range. Not too bad.
Like I said earlier, I think I could’ve done better if I hadn’t stayed out the night before. But I’m happy with my results, because it shows a higher fitness level overall.
After the race I went home! The end.
NEXT RACE REPORT WILL BE ON THE PORTLAND (HALF) MARATHON! Until then.
