Build a Better Pacer Trap

Ready or not, here I come.  Only about 8 hours until race time.  I should be sleeping.  I do at least have everything together.

I even have my rose-colored glasses, which I may need with a 60% chance of rain during the race.

Since my last post I did get a chance to run that new hill (which wasn't as bad as I thought), and it was raining, so other than my new "PACER" shirt and the sign, nothing new on race day.

Speaking of the sign, someone needs to build a better version.  I don't think there would be enough of a market for it to be a profitable venture, but there's a lot of room for improvement.  The forecast calls for 19 mph winds tomorrow, and I'm thinking that the 2-sided sign will be like a sail.  If I like the experience and do more pacing, I'm going to make my own sign.  Just running it through my head, I think it would work much better if the sign were an equilateral triangle instead of 2-sided.  That would make it readable from any direction, and it would be easy to point the triangle into the wind.  With the 2-sided sign, I either have to turn it so it slices through the air and can't be read by people ahead or behind me, or so the people behind me can see it and I'm constantly fighting the wind with it.  It would also be nice to have it on some kind of spindle so it would turn to the least wind-resistant angle.
Those improvements will have to wait, but I did make a couple of quick improvements tonight.  First, I used my staple gun to put 3 big staples on each side to make sure that even in the rain and wind, the sign doesn't come loose from the dowel.  The other improvement took a little more work.  I drilled a hole in the bottom and screwed a strap in that I can loop around my hand so I don't have to grip it so hard.  If I didn't do that, I would want a much bigger handle.  I thought about attaching the handle of an old hockey stick or putting the end of it in the strap for a hand-held water bottle.  It definitely needs some kind of improvement, because it's way too small for my hand.  I'm not Lana from Archer, but I'm not the guy on the Hardee's commercial who won't each a Thickburger because of it showing how tiny my hands are either.  Here's what it looks like for tomorrow.

Nothing left to do now but hydrate a little more and catch some Z's.  I can hear the rain against my window, so it should be some good sleeping weather.

"Here's Your Sign"

I've taken "nothing new on race day" to a new level for my first pacing experience.  I usually don't pay much attention to that saying, figuring that if something new causes a difficulty, I'll just muddle through it.  I'm not racing for prize money anything, just doing it for myself, so there's not much at stake.  I don't think I've ever before run the entirety of a race course except when I ran it in the event.  I didn't even do that when I considered myself a serious bike racer.  But with pacing, other people I don't want to let down are counting on me, so I'm over-preparing.  I've run this course enough times that "I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway".  Well, not Broadway, but Forest, Grand, MLK Parkway, Capitol, etc., and even Dey.

I've thought a lot about how it may or may not be different running the entire race holding a sign.  I've considered making my own sign to carry on my practice runs, but came up with another solution that prevented me getting any more strange looks than I normally get.  Last night and my prior practice run on the course,  I simulated carrying a sign by carrying a quart-sized water bottle the whole way.  I thought it might be too heavy, but then figured my sign may feel heavier if there's a wind whipping it around.  It took a few adjustments to get comfortable with it, but soon I almost forgot about it.  I don't think the sign will be a big deal at all.

Something else changed that may be a big deal and I'm more than a little concerned about.   I had my pacing down, nailing 3 hours again Monday evening.  I had to walk a little more in the last mile than I had planned so I didn't finish too early, but I finished right on 3 hours. Then yesterday I got an email that they changed the course.  Yikes!   The 11th mile of the race was originally contained a gradual climb of 9 blocks.  Now the climb is 11 blocks and significantly steeper.  I think it's going to be tougher than "Bulldog Hill" the one that they are making a big deal about with pacers and prizes specifically for that hill.  So the last 3 miles will be leaving Gray's Lake, having a short downhill followed by 11 or 12 blocks of up hill, some if it fairly steep, then a steep downhill for a block, then directly into climbing Bulldog Hill, then down and up two more hills before reaching the Drake campus where it levels out somewhat for the last mile.  Even without the prior 10 miles, miles 11 and 12 would be tough.  For those people with me, most of whom I'm guessing will have never run a half Marathon before, that 2 mile stretch will be BRUTAL.  Take a look at the elevation profile at the bottom of this map.

Leaving Gray's Lake, I'm going to need to be 1:30 to 2 minutes ahead of schedule so I can walk a good portion of the the uphills in miles 11 and 12.  I don't have time to run the whole course between now and Sunday morning, so instead of going in with the confidence I had before, I'll be concerned about getting my group to the line in 3 hours.  I know I can do it myself, but I'm worried about being able to manage the exertion level the right way so that those for whom 3 hours will be a PR can do it too.

One other thing I found that I have to change for Sunday is my start.  When I ran it Monday, my split for the first mile was 12:24, which is 1:20 faster than what my average needs to be.  If I do that on Sunday, I'll immediately lose anyone running at a steady 3 hour pace, or they'll blow up trying to hang with me.  It will be better to let them get ahead of me while runners sort themselves out and then gradually catch up with them.  I'm going to walk at least the first 200 yards, holding my arm as high as I can, saying to all the 3 hour runners, "Here's your sign!"

One Week to Race Day!

About 6 weeks or so ago my friend Brian commented that it had been awhile since I'd updated this blog.  With one week to race day, I'd better better hurry or I'll have left to write about will be post-race report.
Even though I haven't been writing about it, I have been getting ready.
A great thing about my first pacing adventure is that it will be right in my neighborhood.  I drive on or by the course just about every day, sometimes several times a day, so it's easy to jump on it for practice.  Since the last blog post I've done that four times and plan to do it once more this week, probably tomorrow (actually according to the clock and calendar it already is "tomorrow", but it's not to me since I haven't gone to bed yet).
I ran it the first time when we had a nice day on Sunday January 12.  I wanted to familiarize myself with the course and get some miles at a relaxed pace.  I loaded my Camelback with warm water and threw in a few gels and a Clif Bar.  However, I got started late and had a prior commitment, so I had to cut the distance short and push a little toward the end.  Still a good run (12.3 miles in about 2:08) and I made it to the ceremony just in time.
Second attempt I had time to take the full 3 hours and aimed to do just that. I set the virtual partner on my Garmin to 13:44 minutes per mile and started my run. I tried not looking at the watch too often and remember the pace I used during the 24 Hour Treadmill Challenge.  However, with most of the first couple of miles of the course being downhill, I was quickly a couple of minutes ahead of my planned pace and had to walk awhile to get back on schedule.  I had to both slow my cadence and shorten my stride.  By doing that and walking up some hills, I was able to hit pretty close to my mark, finishing in 2:58.  This was proving to be harder than I expected.  I had not anticipated how much it was going to hurt!  I think it was because of the stride length change causing me to use muscles differently, but I was as sore or more so than if I had raced it.
Third time really was a charm.  I nailed it!

My friend Larry Kelley gave me the suggestion that it would be better to try to keep my effort level constant rather than trying to keep my pace constant despite the terrain.  On this run I concentrated on that.  I was again ahead of schedule in the early part, but that gave me some cushion to walk up the harder hills in the last third of the course.   The sun had set, so I could only check the Garmin when I reached a street light (I'm still working on figuring out how to make the backlighting thing work).  I gave up trying to get it exact, and just hit the stop button when I thought I was close to 13.1 miles and 3 hours time.  I couldn't believe I hit it exactly!

On my fourth time running the course, I was again short of time, so I just ran it, not worrying about pace.  I took it fairly easy in the first 2/3, but then pushed pretty hard in the last 1/3.  The result was an unofficial half-marathon PR of 2:14:29!  No medal and no fans, but it felt just as good as if I'd had a number pinned on.

I'm probably over-prepared.  I'll find out soon.

"I'm Not a Runner"

I say, "I'm not a runner" rather often.   Followed by,  "I'm a bike racer.  I just like hanging out with runners better than bike racers, so I have to run once in awhile".  I keep picturing Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore saying, "I'm not a golfer; I'm a hockey player."  I'm not a hockey player either, but I love to play hockey.
I am a bucket lister.  I was doing a "bucket list" long before the movie came out.  I was inspired by a Readers Digest article I read for a college class in the late 1980's or early '90's (which I have not been able to find since) about a guy who made a list of things he wanted to do before he died while still in high school and made a career out of it. At the time the article was written, he'd been doing it 40 years or so.   He would get sponsors for his adventures, write about them and sell the articles, and also do speaking engagements to earn his living.  Although I haven't made a living at it, I have done some really cool things in my almost 47 years on the planet.  The last thing I had on my list that was related to running was "run a Marathon", which I did on September 14, 2013.

I needed some other goal, but running more Marathons or going further doesn't really interest me.  Frankly, I got bored running that long.  Maybe if I could run 26.2 in 2 hours....but I can't, and I'm not willing to put the time in to be a fast runner, especially for that long of a distance.  I found my goal while watching the IMT Des Moines Marathon about a month after I finished the Wabash Trace Marathon.  I went to cheer on several friends who were running, and couldn't believe how close the pacers were to their goal times.  They were all coming through right on the button.  Since I get as much or more satisfaction from helping others accomplish their goals than I do from meeting my own, I decided to make being a race pacer my next goal.
Even though I'm not a runner I do have a lot of friends who are, so I reached out to some of them, mainly through the GOATz (Greater Omaha Area Trail Runners) Facebook page, to find out what I needed to do to become a race pacer.  The consensus was that I needed to run a lot of races to establish what my expected base time would be, and then after a few years of that, I might be able to find a spot in a race that needed a pacer.  Since I really liked the distance of the one half Marathon that I had done (2013 Drake Relays Half  Marathon), I decided to research the topic thoroughly and  focus on doing as many halfs as I could over the next couple of years so I could qualify to be a pacer.  It didn't exactly work out that way.
Shortly after I decided to become a race pacer, I saw another Facebook post from my local running club, Capital Striders, that they needed a three hour pacer for the 2014 Drake Relays Half Marathon.  I sent a message to the contact person along the lines of, "I know I'm not qualified, but I would like to do this in the future, so if you could give me any tips, that would be great.  Oh, and if you don't find anyone else, I could give it a shot".  A few days later I found out that I would be the three hour pacer on April 27, 2014.  Let the adventure begin!