December 9, 2023: The Monday Night Brewing Westside 10K

Several weeks ago, my good friend Brian Minor sent me the following text: 

This is how the latest round of the
mano-a-mano competition began. 

I ran this race for the first time in 2021 when I was recovering from a strained gluteus, and the 10-miler version in 2022 as part of an 18-mile marathon training long run. Both races were challenges, but this fall, rebuilding my fitness through the half-marathon training program, I felt that I was ready to record a good result - and to notch a win for myself in the long-standing mano-a-mano competition with Brian. It had rained off and on all night, and I needed the windshield wipers throughout my drive to westside Atlanta, but the rain had ended by the time I parked and picked up my bib. To add a "4% speed" advantage from "supershoes", I wore my Adidas Adizeros, which I had last worn in my successful Thanksgiving Half Marathon. Today was the first time that I wore those $250 shoes on a wet course, but I've had them for 9 months so I wanted to get my money's worth while they were still in good shape.  

Before the race, ready to win! 

I caught up with Brian in the port-o-potty line, then went out for a short warmup. I felt confident and strong today, ready for the challenge. The temperature was cool but not cold at 54 deg F, and we were still dry, with the rain holding off. Walking to the start line, I stopped for a moment at the front of the pack, turned around and said to Brian "I think this is the right place to start." Brian was surprised, then realized I was joking, and we stepped back around 50 feet. 

Several hundred runningnerds ready to run!
It's not raining, but there are many puddles. 

My main strategy for today was to avoid getting ahead of Brian, just wait with him, then take advantage whenever he had a slight falter in the last mile, assuming that happened. That strategy worked in my 60th birthday 5K. Brian has a "lightning" kick, and has defeated me a couple of times catching me from behind in the last 200 meters. We crossed the starting mat together, and settled into a nice easy pace. I was constantly checking to make sure that Brian was on my left. When I pulled ahead by just a couple of steps, I looked back, then slightly slowed down, to make sure that Brian kept up with me. About 5 minutes into the race, the rain started, although it was never too heavy, and ended within a few minutes. Since I was expecting ran, I wore a cap today, and that helped me stay comfortable as the rest of my clothing became damp. Fortunately all of my clothing was wicking fabric, with wool socks on my feet, so I was never uncomfortable with the moisture as long as I was moving today. We were running 9 minute / mile pace, which is my half-marathon goal pace, so I had room to speed up whenever that time might come. Mile 1, 9:03; mile 2, 8:58. I felt good at that easy race pace, although I noticed that my heart rate was a little higher than I expected, nearly 160 beats per minute. 

video of our start, courtesy of Beverly Minor

We ran that tactical pace for 2-1/2 miles. Approaching Westside Reservoir Park, I accepted a cup of water and took a short walk break. Brian pulled ahead, but when I resumed running, I was only 10 seconds behind. Running into the park, slightly downhill, I gradually caught up to Brian and was running directly behind him as we made the turn. I stayed to his left as we made the clockwise turn. I was hoping to hide behind Brian for awhile. The mile 3 alert sounded, 8:51. I figured that Brian heard me running behind him, but he might not know that it was me. Then someone coming the other way gave my secret away, shouting "Good job, FRANK!" I'm sure they meant well. 

After that, I pulled even with Brian and said "I guess now you know that I've been hiding behind you!" As we began to run uphill, Brian responded: "This is the race!" and took off strongly. I followed, shortening my stride, but I was winded by the time I had reached the top of the hill at the park entrance. Leaving the park, both Brian and I took water this time. I needed to catch my breath before I could even begin to drink. But Brian wasn't in a hurry either. We walked together uphill for 30 seconds, then it stretched to a full minute. After 90 seconds of walking, Brian said "Let's go!" and we both resumed running. Making a right turn on West Marietta Street, Brian and I ran together as both of our watches sounded the mile 4 alert within a few seconds of each other: 9:47. 

Red is faster, blue is walking. Too much blue in mile 5, so read on....

The road continued uphill; several large trucks passed heading to the intersection with Marietta Boulevard. I was feeling winded again. I dropped behind Brian and slowed to a walk. I remember that happened last year in this same location. What alarmed me today was that I saw 180 bpm on my watch. My heart shouldn't be beating this rapidly. It's a good thing I took that walk break. After 60 seconds I resumed running, not wanting to lose sight of Brian. We turned left through the busy intersection onto Marietta Boulevard, leaving the trucks behind. Brian was about 30 seconds ahead of me. I told myself, you can close that gap, just be patient. "Relax and glide." I made a right turn onto Huff Road, while the 10-mile competitors continued straight ahead. I didn't envy them at all! We began a nice downhill section. I thought that I might gain a few seconds on Brian. But when I checked my watch, I was truly alarmed: 188 bpm, while running downhill. That should not happen. Severe oxygen debt, I thought. 

I slowed to a walk.  

I FELT BAD.

Oh, SHIT!!!

In that moment, I realized that I had taken my blood pressure medication this morning. 

When my doctor started me on losartan for borderline hypertension several years ago, he warned me "Don't take it the morning of your big marathon." A few months later, about 12 miles into a long easy run for marathon training, my heart rate had skyrocketed. I had to walk-slow run-walk for several miles to get back to the car. I'm not sure how much I really know about cardiovascular physiology, but I know that blood pressure rises when running, to bring enough oxygenated blood to the brain and other organs. I'm guessing that if my peak blood pressure is "capped" by medication, my heart rate will increase, as my cardiovascular system attempts to keep up, by any means necessary. 

Since that time, I have been careful not to take the medication before a morning race, or even before a morning run. Until today. I messed up. 

A whole lotta walkin' goin' on. 
Someone oughta write a song....

I gave up on racing Brian, and just concentrated on taking care of myself through the last two miles. I walked and walked, five full minutes. Many runners passed me: as Caroline Dunn came by, she asked if I was OK. I waved and simply said "I'll have an interesting blog post for this race." By the time Caroline had passed me, my pulse had dropped to 140 bpm, so I resumed running. Mile 5: 12:02. Almost immediately, my pulse was back to 180 bpm. I tapped my watch to make sure that the sensor was conducting properly, but my skin was damp, and this watch has been reliable. And I felt like there was a real problem with me, not the electronics. Another walk break, this time for two minutes. Approaching the intersection with Howell Mill Road, I recognized that I didn't have far to go. 51:30 elapsed, I probably wasn't going to finish within 60 minutes. 

Looking at this data, it was clear that my heart rate was far too high from the beginning,
I just didn't realize it until I was well into the race. 

I felt OK as I resumed running, around a 9 minute / mile pace. My heart rate was still high, but I didn't feel like I was in danger of collapsing, so I kept running. After the intersection with 17th Street, it was downhill the rest of the way, so I sped up a bit. Making the final turn onto Trabert Avenue, 56:45 elapsed. Could I finish in 3 minutes? The road curved gently to the right. I expected to see the finish line, but not yet! My watch didn't sound the mile 6 alert until shortly before the finish line: 9:44, 58:25 elapsed. Then the road made another gentle right turn, downhill and over the timing mat. The race clock showed 59:04 as I passed, 59:00 minutes on my watch, 6.08 miles for the course. 

video of Brian's finish

a few minutes later

I was so relieved to be finished, just running the 10K. I was wiped out physically, and perhaps even more exhausted emotionally. I found Brian, congratulated him on a good race, he mastered the many hills on this route, finishing in 55:30. Eventually I shared with Brian my medication faux pas. I don't want that to be an excuse for why I couldn't win today. That was my error, I know better, and hope I won't make that mistake again. 

Brian with the winner of the 10K race, Kevin Hicks

Frank with the winner of our mano-a-mano competition

(left) Big spread in our results: Brian 59th place, Frank 89th place.

(right) Results ordered by age: No younger participants outran me today! 

Today's stats

December 3, 2023: The Peachtree Mile

Panaroma photo in Piedmont Park after we finished the race, waiting for awards

Last year I had a great experience in the Peachtree Mile, finishing in 6:47 (chip time) for a personal best, albeit boosted by a 77-foot elevation drop. After I finished the Thanksgiving half marathon unscathed, I decided to register again this year. $35 for a 7-minute run, $5 per minute, although I got a nice T-shirt and a pair of branded mittens on top of today's race experience. 

This morning I woke up sore from yesterday's 5K effort. I tried some physical therapy exercises last night before going to bed, but had some left glute stiffness that was unresolved this morning. While I woke up at 5:30 am for an 8 am race, it took me awhile to get ready, mostly needing to make a deposit in the porcelain bank. (Today's race would have been a disaster if I had skipped that pre-race preparation step.) It had rained on and off all night, and was still lightly raining when I finally got in the car at 6:45 am for the drive to Piedmont Park. 

Arriving around 7:15 am, and making another bathroom stop in the park, I briskly walked from the parking garage to bib pickup at 14th Street and Piedmont Road. I hoped that would be enough to work out some kinks. I saw a few familiar faces: Matthew Grzeck and his son Santiago, Allison Troxell and Jacque Hartley, all of whom were also at yesterday's Singleton 20K relay. Instead of socializing, I tried to warm up a bit more by jogging in the park for a few minutes, but soon it was 7:45 am, and it was time to walk up 14th Street to the starting point at Colony Square. Allison and I talked during the walk: she has a goal of running 52 races this year, with today's race #48 for 2023. 

Before long we were lined up in one lane of Peachtree Street, facing south. We were a smaller group than last year. Matthew reminded Santiago to watch out for slick leaves on the path, which I also remembered from last year's race. I looked around and joked to Allison "There are a lot of 60-year-old men here today!" The race started at 8:00 am sharp. Allison, Matthew, Jacque and I started together, but within a block they were all ahead of me. For me, I knew within 30 seconds that I had not warmed up properly and I wasn't going to have a great race, somewhat hobbled by the left glute. I decided to just run and see how things worked out, after all it was only a mile. 

My pace wasn't very even for the first part of the race,
although that might have been the Garmin signal
affected by buildings on Peachtree Street. For the second half of the race,
my pace inversely correlated with elevation, as expected. 

At the corner of Peachtree Street with 10th Street, I took a quick peek at my watch: 2:42. That was a pleasant surprise: last year I reached the corner at 2:35, so despite the non-ideal conditions, I was doing better than expected to this stage. However, I couldn't get into a higher gear. A younger man passed me, tried to encourage me to keep up with him, but after 15 seconds of effort I had to fall back and let him go. Another peak at my watch as we reached the edge of Piedmont Park showed 5:40. Definitely not breaking 7 minutes today. Unlike yesterday's race, when no one passed me in the second half of the race, people were regularly passing me. Clearing the last tiny hill on 10th Street, seeing the finish line in the distance, I heard the steps of another runner gaining on me. I tried to speed up, but the other runner pulled alongside me to my right, then passed me a few steps before I crossed the finish line. I saw 7:31 on the clock, so that was better than the 8-minute finish that I was anticipating. 

I earned a finisher's medal! 

Official time: 7:27. I'm not particularly perturbed by the time. The experience confirmed that I just can't push hard running on two consecutive days. To my surprise, I placed 4th out of 6 men in the 60 - 69 age group. I was 43nd overall out of 74 finishers, although I had the feeling as I crossed the finish line that there was absolutely no one left behind me. (Looking at the results, there was a 15 second gap after me and the next finisher.)

The winner finished in 4:14. I was a minute behind the age group winner (results on right)
 but less than 20 seconds behind 2nd and 3rd place in my age group. 

With a small race, a large percentage of the speedsters end up winning something. Allison was the female master's winner, and Jordan Eison and Jacque Hartley won their age groups. 

This is what a 4:14 miler looks like (Will Ponder, age 22) 

And a 5:18 miler (Jill Braley-Boyd, age 45)

Allison Troxell female master's champion in 6:36 (age 52)

Winner of my age group in 6:25 (Charles Potts, age 63)

I managed to run a few easy miles after the race, enjoying the newly opened section of the Eastside Beltline in Ansley Park. My running goal for the coming week is easy recovery jogging, so that I'm 100% ready for my next mano-a-mano challenge with Brian Minor, at the Monday Night Brewing Westside 10K on Saturday December 9! 

December 2, 2023: The Singleton 20K Relay

With my focus on the Thanksgiving Half Marathon, I was not proactively thinking about other races. However, last weekend one of the run leads posted a note on the In-Training FaceBook site encouraging us to form teams if we were interested. I had recovered well from the half-marathon, posted my interest, and David Bloomquist responded. As the week developed, it looked like we were going to have a mixed master's team, but before I went to bed Friday evening, saw a note that read like one of our team members was under the impression that either the race or the team wasn't happening, not clear. When I woke up this morning, I wasn't sure if I would have a team when I arrived, but decided that either we would find people wanting to run with us or I would find a team that might want me. 

I love this sign! (but I don't know who created it)

Indeed we had three members ready to go: David Bloomquist, Sheelagh O'Malley, and me. David wanted me to be the anchor, so I took the "D" bib, Sheelagh the "C" bib, and David the "B" bib. David thought he had someone lined up for the "A" bib, so around 8:10 am, 20 minutes before the start, we went out for a short warmup jog on the Southwest Beltline. We covered a mile in 10 minutes, returning to the start-finish area at 8:20 am, with 10 minutes to go. David checked with the volunteers managing the event, only to discover that the person that he had identified an hour earlier for bib "A" was no longer available. Fortunately, the volunteers were trying to match up a young man who was looking for a team. Meanwhile I was looking at our "A" bib sitting alone on a folding chair without a runner, and MC Ronnel Blackmon was summoning the "A" runners to the start line. With David and Sheelagh's assent, I decided to switch my "D" bib for the "A" bib, to ensure that our team could start on time. It was just a fun run, no one had expectations of me or anyone else on the team, and I figured that I could continue my warm up in the first mile of the race. 

Ready to start, competing against
Stephanie Batson on the Tucker Running Club team

I lined up near the back of the starting wave. Within a minute, Ronnel had sounded the airhorn, sending us on our way. Stephanie and I ran together for the first few minutes. I was determined to start out slow (like the turtle) but when I first looked at my watch, was running 8:35 min / mile pace, faster than I had expected. Everything felt fine, so I decided to just stick with that pace. I had never run with a baton before (to which was strapped a timing chip) but it wasn't heavy, I just didn't want to drop it. After passing under the MARTA underpass (remembering a Friday evening last year when Bonnie and I waited out an unexpected thunderstorm in the underpass) the route was noticeably downhill. I've run this section of the Beltline many times on easy group runs, and knew that the return trip would be challenging, so I did my best to conserve energy. Eventually I pulled ahead of Stephanie and paced alongside a couple of other runners. Mile 1: 8:25, approaching the Metropolitan Parkway overpass. I stayed with that couple all the way down to the turnaround. We were about 10 minutes into the race before the lead runners on the return trip were passing us, four speedsters in quick succession. At the bottom of the hill, shortly before the paved Beltline ended at the I-75/I-85 underpass, we turned around, about 13 minutes elapsed.  

At the start: I'm on the far left, wearing the green
2023 Publix Atlanta Marathon shirt 

Heading uphill, I shortened my stride and immediately passed the couple that I'd been running with. I thought, I sure hope that I won't regret that move if they end up passing me. It turns out that was my fastest minute of today's race. Meanwhile my pulse was rising, reaching 171 beats per minute by the time I reached the mile 2 marker, right before Metropolitan Parkway. In the humidity and with sweaty hands, I was concerned about losing my grip on the baton: that would be embarrassing! For mile 2, I had slowed to 8:34, but that wasn't bad considering that we were running uphill. 17 minutes elapsed, on pace for a sub-27 minute finish, which was my plan for my leg of the relay. 

I kept running uphill, past a group of volunteers and a medic on a bike as I crossed Allene Avenue, the only road crossing our route. 21 minutes elapsed, around 2.5 miles covered. 5 - 6 minutes to go: I passed one more runner, but could hear the footsteps of a couple not far behind. The uphill effort was taking its toll: I badly wanted to take a walk break, but I was more afraid of being passed, so I kept pressing forward. At 23 minutes, I was approaching the MARTA underpass. 3 - 4 minutes to go, and the route was finally leveling out. Running, running, I saw Sheelagh up ahead, to run with me for the final section. I thought it would be only 0.1 mile to the finish, but after running together for a minute, there was the 3-mile marker, and what I had thought was the turn to the exchange area was blocked off! "I thought I was nearly done!" I gasped to Sheelagh. 8:43 for mile 3, 25:42 elapsed. I had slowed down a bit more, but understandable given the amount of uphill running in that mile. 

Finally we reached the right turn off of the Beltline, Sheelagh cheered me forward. I had noticed a slick wooden bridge at that mark during our warmup, but fortunately I had no trouble with footing. Staying on the path, avoiding the temptation to cut the tangent, I made another right turn heading into the exchange area. No one had passed me to this stage: I kept moving forward on the muddy ground as fast as I could, waved the baton in the air as I spotted David standing on the right. Crossing one timing mat, I put the baton firmly into David's outstretched hand, and he took off. 

26:27 for my leg: not bad, especially for a fun run! I ran a minute faster than in my last 5K race in late September. But I had really pushed myself, was completely winded. I needed several tries to properly stop my watch. I bent over for a minute to catch my breath, then remembered that the best thing that I could do for myself was to walk slowly. I eventually made my way back to the Beltline to wait for David on his return leg. If there was any consolation, most of the wave B runners in front of David were really working hard, looking quite tired, probably the same way I had looked with 0.2 miles to go. About 24 minutes after I had finished, I saw David approaching, snapped a couple of photos, and then turned around to run with him. 

David near the end of leg 2

I quickly slid my phone into a pocket and began running as David caught up to me. "2 minutes to go!" I said for encouragement. I had thought that I would run alongside David, but I wasn't sufficiently recovered to keep up with his pace. As we reached the mile 3 marker, I called "You can do anything for 1 minute!" and dropped back, stepping off the course to avoid interfering with any runners behind David, after all my race was already finished. The bike medic asked if I was OK - I assured him that I was, and walked the rest of the way to the exchange area, making sure that I didn't get in the way of any runner on the narrow pathway. 

David had already handed off to Sheelagh, completing his leg in 26 minutes as well. After David had cooled down a bit, he introduced me to our "D" bib runner, a young man named Johann. He looked ready to run fast, probably faster than the masters / grandmasters runners on his team. I was happy to see that we had a full team, and Johann assured me that he had met Sheelagh and would recognize her when the approached the exchange area. After 26 minutes, I saw Sheelagh making the final turn to approach the exchange area. Sheelagh smoothly transferred the baton to Johann, and our last leg of the relay was underway! 

Johann on the left, orange jersey and maroon shorts.
In the distance, Sheelagh has just made the final turn.

Sheelagh holds up the baton as she approaches the timing mat

Crossing the timing mat, Sheelagh spots Johann

who steps out on cue

Smooth handoff! 

Johann is quickly moving out of the exchange area

and Sheelagh has just finished a 26 minute leg of her own! 

Johann ran a strong leg of his own, sub-25 minutes. We joined him to run together to the finish, but Johann was competing with two other "D" bib runners, and their teammates were trying to join: 12 people together on a narrow path, fortunately no one was tripped up. I couldn't keep up with Johann and happily fell back and jogged on the side of the path. Ronnel was there to give each of us a high-five to congratulate our team's strong performance!  

Team David Bloomquist #328: great job!!