Atlanta will proudly host the next Olympic Marathon trials on February 29, 2020, to select 3 men and 3 women to represent the United States in the marathon at the close of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. To test out the final loop of the marathon course (three 6.0-mile loops concluding with an 8.2 mile loop), the Atlanta Track Club launched a new race, the Road to Gold, announced with great fanfare last fall.
A few days after running my second-fastest 5K time four weeks ago, I developed some soreness and tightness in my right calf. I had trouble beginning a 16-mile training run three weeks ago, although managed to settle into a decent pace and finished. However I started limping when I walked, and so Coach Carl recommended that I get a sports massage. Corey Dobyns of Core Balance + Wellness worked out a really tight spot in the upper part of the calf, which took care of my limp, but I still struggled with running. Carl then recommended that I see a sports chiropractor, Josh Glass of Georgia Sports Chiropractic, who diagnosed a hip misalignment that might be the root of my problems. In fact as he showed me how my right foot splayed outwards, I realized that I've had that for decades. It's particularly evident in some of the videos that Bonnie has taken of me running, but I remember one of my graduate school buddies commenting on how she could pick me out from behind in a crowd. So now it's caught up with me!
And the culprit is ... SITTING! That's right, I'm suffering from a desk jockey injury. Believe it or not, a lifetime of dutiful studying, reading, writing ... this physically brutal work has taken a significant toll on my body. Back in my early teens, I remember a band director telling us that the human body was meant only to stand or lie down, and that we were injuring ourselves by sitting. But I didn't believe him. Now I'm living with the regret. Sitting is the new smoking.
The good news is that there may be a cure, if I regain full range of motion for the sacroiliac joint, by promoting blood circulation to the ligaments. Dr. Glass gave me an adjustment to the right hip. To my surprise, this involved a few full body weight impacts on the hip while I was curled up in a couple of positions. I have trouble describing it without it sounding awful, but it wasn't inappropriate nor was it painful, but certainly forceful. Dr. Glass also gave me a list of exercises to work on after exercising and every evening, and a leg swing exercise to do every HOUR (his capitalization) with increased frequency with prolonged sitting. I walked out of his office feeling great! I didn't try to run at that moment, as I needed to get back to work to finish grading a stack of midterm exam papers.
And, you guessed it, I sat at my desk for the rest of the afternoon, completing the second half of a grading marathon in about 4 hours.
I DID stand up every hour or so, working through the leg swing exercises. But by the time for the Tuesday evening track workout, about six hours after the adjustment, the soreness in the calf had returned. I couldn't get loose, and decided to skip the workout in favor of going to the gym. I did all of the exercises using a shower towel and adding some foam rolling. I jogged about 1/2 mile on the indoor track with less discomfort, and probably could have run for longer, but the gym was about to close.
If any of the handful of students who didn't do well on the exam happen to read this, you are forgiven for thinking that I've received my just reward.
But please believe me when I insist that ethyl acrylate is an electrophilic alkene consistent with a relatively low energy LUMO. And the para-chlorination of benzoic acid is the most exergonic pathway even if the evidence reveals that meta-chlorination is kinetically favored, with the lowest energy of activation to the transition state for the rate-determining step.
Back to running: I struggled through a Thursday evening run, cutting it off after 3 miles of jog-walk-jog. But I kept doing the exercises as much as possible. Friday was a rough day of meetings (sitting), taking a Lyft to pick up my car from the auto hospital (more sitting), driving back into Atlanta (one more hour of sitting) to meet Bonnie, to attend the hilarious Hari Kondabolu show (two more hours of sitting) before driving home (30 minutes of sitting). With all that sitting, I wasn't well-prepared to run a race on Saturday morning.
Yet when I awoke, I felt relatively good. Perhaps four straight days of doing the prescribed exercises had helped. I drove downtown to the start of the race (30 minutes of sitting) but had plenty of time to warm up. The coaching plan was to run 2 miles before the race and 2 miles after the race, but I chose instead to do a lot of walking alternating with short easy jogs (2 blocks or so) and dynamic stretching in the hour before the start. Through all of this, I was watching as elite runners warmed up, easily flying past me while effortlessly chatting with each other.
I picked up my bib from an Atlanta Track Club volunteer. This was a very good omen for the day:
which I subsequently corrected to read:
A group of about a few dozen men, who I suspect had already all met the Olympic marathon qualifying standard, started their race shortly after 7:00 am, covering one block in less than 30 seconds! Bob Wells, a fellow age-group competitor, was vigorously cheering them on and enthusiastically blowing a vuvuzela. Five minutes later, a similarly large group of women started, nearly as fast. After cheering on the "Olympic hopefuls", I jogged to the starting area, without much pain. I decided to line up in the middle of wave D (11 min / mile or faster), and kept moving before the start. My legs were limber enough to manage "butt kicks" on each side, which was promising. I took my first steps across the starting line with some trepidation, but the first few blocks were fine, and I just kept going. The calf was sore but it didn’t get worse.
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| Part of the Tucker Running Club contingent at 6:45 am. It was a little chilly outside (50 deg F with a mild breeze), so we gathered for the pre-race photo indoors at the Georgia World Congress Center. Unfortunately the volunteer kindly taking our photo cut off most of our feet. How can we run without feet?! |
Bonnie tells me that practically every race report includes the sentence "I planned to start out conservatively but after the first mile I was running better than expected." So I don't need to repeat it today. My Garmin watch wasn't accurately measuring, and afterwards I could see how erratic the map function had been, showing me running through buildings and generally weaving quite a bit from the designated race path. Coach Carl had originally suggested running the first six miles at an 8:45 min / mile pace (my goal half-marathon pace), but I doubted that I could manage that today, even though for one moment my watch indicated that I was running at a world-record pace of 3:40 min / mile. In reality I reached the mile 1 marker and race clock just a little more than 9 minutes after I had begun, and maintained a similar pace through mile 2. As I ran northbound on Peachtree Road, I enjoyed watching the lead runners in the open race returning southbound (the elites had passed much earlier), and then calling out to a few of the faster runners in my circle as they ran strongly ahead of me on the race route. Congratulations Josh Mann and Matt Dickinson!
As we circled the Margaret Mitchell House at the intersection of Peachtree Road with 10th Street, I could imagine the television commentators during next year's Olympic marathon trials intoning:
"And now the runners approach the century-old boarding house where the famous albeit controversial novel Gone with the Wind was written in the 1930's. Did you know that this intersection is also where the Peachtree Road Race on the Fourth of July makes a left turn toward the finish at Piedmont Park? What an interesting juxtaposition of race routes, this is the only point at which the two most famous races in Atlanta will touch."
In the meantime, my Garmin was still not functioning properly. When I checked the map after the race, it showed me overrunning the turn by a full block. Fortunately there was a race clock at every mile marker, and accounting for a 7-minute delay in my wave D start, I crossed the mile 3 timing mat at 28 minutes even, corresponding to an average pace of 9:20 min / mile. And it was fun to continue to see more friends running in the other direction, as the group of runners tapered more toward walkers in front of the sweep group. Great job, Priscilla Hammond, Becky Caldwell, Carolyn Weber, Lindy Liu - and I know that I missed seeing others! I had wondered earlier if my calf would act up to put me at the back of the pack, trying to stay ahead of the 17 minute / mile minimum pace, but so far I felt OK. My calf was sore but I wasn't running with a limp, and the soreness wasn't getting any worse with the miles. The route was a little hilly, but knowing Atlanta and also that we would finish near our starting point, I just kept reminding myself that for every uphill section, we gained a correspondingly easier downhill section. I was running throughout, instead of the Galloway run-walk method that I had used in the past, other than taking a few 30-second walk breaks at the water stations. I also carried a bottle of Nuun to make sure that I stayed hydrated between water stations.
About midway through mile 4, we turned off of Peachtree Road onto Ralph McGill Boulevard, and then a quick turn downhill onto Piedmont Road. I thought to myself, this will be a great place to watch the Olympic trials next year, watching the elites race downhill. Midway through mile 5, we climbed the overpass on Jackson street overlooking the John Lewis Freedom Parkway, looking toward downtown Atlanta. In the marathon, runners sometimes stop and take a selfie with the city at their back, but today everyone around me kept running.
Next year the commentator might announce:
"Here the runners approach the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, passing Ebenezer Baptist Church as they cross Sweet Auburn Avenue. What tremendous history this great city has seen, rising up from the ashes of the Civil War to become the cultural and business capital of the southeastern United States."
Or to quote Hari Kondabolu from last night's comedy sketch:
"I'm glad to be in Atlanta!" (applause)
"The one city in the south where I'm not afraid!" (laughter and more applause)
Just past the mile 5 marker on Edgewood Avenue, we crossed under the Interstate 75-85 Connector heading back into downtown Atlanta, the underpass where a dozen or more people have made their home. I wonder what they were thinking as we ran past. And I'm concerned what will happen in a couple of days when the temperature is forecast to drop below freezing. I won't speculate what the commentators may or may not say about this next year, but I guess the Olympic hopefuls are getting an honest look at our city.
One concern that I had throughout the race were the large number of potholes, missing water caps, and other pavement hazards that could inflict a badly twisted ankle, or worse. They were easy enough for me to see moving at only 6 - 7 miles at hour, but for an elite runner running at faster than 5 minutes per mile pace, I just hope that this doesn't lead to an injury, today or next year.
On the other hand, nearly 2000 runners and hundreds of volunteers of all ages, races, genders, sizes, and varying abilities, but equal in enthusiasm and love for our city, were celebrating the occasion of the Road to Gold. We turned left onto Piedmont Road, heading for Georgia State University. Then the gold leaf dome of the State Capitol building came into view. We were running up a fairly substantial hill, but the street name changed to Capitol Avenue, we headed back downhill, now due south. Now I remembered that I was supposed to practice hydration and nutrition for the half-marathon to come in two weeks, and I took a couple of shot blocks at this stage. The taste of sugar helped propel me up the next hill, and then onto the overpass over Interstate 20, where I saw Brian Minor on another out-and-back section. A couple of elite men ran past me, effortlessly doing their cooldown miles!
"Our athletes will run under the Olympic rings on the way to the former Olympic Stadium from 1996, which became Turner Field for the Atlanta Braves baseball team for the next 20 years, and now the Georgia State University football stadium. But before they reach the stadium, they will make a U-turn to return toward downtown Atlanta."
With about 2 miles to go, Coach Carl had suggested trying to speed up to faster than an 8:45 min / mile pace. In fact I had run to this point at about a 9:20 min / mile pace, but was really happy with my performance to this stage under the circumstances. I did manage to speed up a little, but didn't make it to an 8:45 min / mile pace. Nonetheless I felt strong enough to finish, and started deliberately aiming to pass people ahead of me. I saw more elite runners on their cooldown miles on the sidewalk in the opposite direction, and after passing the mile 7 marker, a few of the early finishers from the open race were also cooling down, cheering the rest of us on. At one corner, Michael Reid who organizes the group runs out of Big Peach Running Company in Decatur was cheering for us.
A couple of blocks after turning off Peters Avenue, I saw Mercedes-Benz Stadium ahead of us, and knew that I was probably within a half-mile of the finish. I pushed up another hill, beginning to tire but knowing that I could still finish strongly, maybe even finishing in about 75 minutes, which I had not imagined at the beginning of the day. Tommy Daniels was at a corner cheering me in, and we exchanged high-fives. Turning in front of the stadium, Rich Kenah, the Atlanta Track Club CEO encouraged us with "Just 400 meters to go!" At that moment, Donna Roberts from TRC caught up with me. I said "Hi Donna!" She turned around and then remembering that she recently won an age-group award, I shouted "Go! Go! Don't let me slow you down!!" She sped up ahead, but I decided to try to keep up with her. Now my calf was beginning to hurt, but it wasn't much further. I actually caught up with Donna, she saw me, sped up ahead of me, I nearly caught up, she found one more gear as the finish line came into site, and I crossed a few steps behind her, thrilled to realize that I had finished in just over 75 minutes. Honestly two days earlier, I was just hoping for a sub 2-hour finish.
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| I was particularly pleased with my consistency. |
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| Tucker Running Club subgroup: me, Donna Roberts, Liz Mann, and Josh Mann. Our relative chip time finishes were 1:15:10, 1:13:07, 1:13:47, and an amazing 59:50! |
I walked around for a while, stretching and exercising with leg swings, walking some more, then came to the awards ceremony where the Atlanta Track Club announcer recognized the winners among the Olympic hopefuls. Look at these incredible times:
Men
Brogan Austin, 38:06
Jared Ward, 38:17
Parker Stinson, 38:25
Women
Amy Cragg, 43:23
Carrie Dimoff, 44:23
Brittany Charboneau, 44:32
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| The elite winners congratulating the winner of the women's open division |
Now I just hope that I haven't caused myself a problem by sitting for the better part of 2 hours while writing this blog post!
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