1 bad race + 1 great race= 1 big improvement: the 2011 Metric Marathon

The 2010 Annapolis Striders Ironmen and women (I'm in the back, wearing green). Photo by Jon Valentine.

This past Sunday, I did my second running of the Annapolis Striders Metric Marathon (26.2K or 16.3 miles). The Metric Marathon is leg 6 of the 8-leg Champ Series. These races are spread out throughout the year and feature a wide range of distances: 5K, 10 miles, 10K, 1 mile, XC 8K, 26.2K, 5 miles, and 15K. If you run all of them in a given year, you win the Striders' Ironman award.

I picked up my first Ironman award in 2010. This was a big accomplishment for me, but it paled in comparison to the accomplishments of some of the other recipients. At the Striders' awards banquet, I was amazed to see a handful of people pick up awards for their 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and even 25th consectuive years of running the whole champ series. Its remarkable that these people have stayed in shape to run everything from 1 to 16.3 miles for that many years. Even more amazing is the pure logistics. In 25 years, there is no way that these people were never sick for a race, or injured, or juggling other commitments. The reality is that they ran races while sick or injured, and they have moved heaven and earth to get to their races every year. I think that's the real challenge of the Champ Series- just getting yourself to the start line eight times every year.

The 2010 Metric Marathon was the race that almost cost me my first IronMan award. I woke up that morning with a horrible cold, and it was only the prospect of losing the IronMan award that got me to the start line. I had one of my most miserable races to date, battling waves of nausea in the first half and major hip pain in the second half. Not fun.

This year, I was fortunate to be healthy on race day. I was less fortunate in terms of weather: I woke on Sunday morning to a 45-degree drizzle that did not make me feel like getting up and going outside. Once again, it was the IronMan award that got me to the start. One of the later Champ Series races is happening the day before the NYC marathon and the organizer is doing me a HUGE favor so I won't have to miss it (more about that later). With that in mind, I couldn't let a little cold and rain keep me from this race.

Once again, this proved to be a tough race, but it was so much better than my TheraFlu- powered shuffle of 2010. Early on, I found myself in a small pack with some friends from the Striders' marathon training group. Talking to them definitely made the time pass, but it also made me go out a bit too fast. I didn't notice how fast we were going until mile 4, when I looked at my watch and saw that less than 40 minutes had elapsed since the start. A sub 10-minute pace is what I do in a 10K on a good day, not in a longer race. Still, I felt good, so I stayed with my friends until the turnaround a little past mile 8.

At that point, I started to fall behind and I really started to feel the accumulated fatigue from the previous weekend's trail run. Everything that had been sore from the trail race- especially my hip and my shins- started to hurt. To make matters worse, I left the house in a hurry and forgot the Advil I usually bring for late-in-race aches and pains. By mile 10, I was really struggling. At that point, I started a near-constant mental mantra of "The faster you run, the sooner you'll be done." I definitely slowed a bit, but I kept moving. 

My goal for the race had been to finish in under 3 hours. When I crossed the finish line at 2:55, I was pleased, but I didn't realize just how well I had done until I went back and checked last year's time: 3:10. A 15-minute improvement! I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure this is my biggest improvement in a year of improvements.

Now, I am 6/8 of the way to my 2nd and much faster IronMan!