We have a two-week respite between the end of regular season cross-country and the championship regional race. This year, nestled in the two-week break was the Clarksburg Half Marathon, a race that’s part of the “road” series in the year-long PA circuit. If you’ve been reading my writing for a long time, you may remember that I ran Clarksburg a few years ago and had a rather horrible day— the kind that involves emergency bathroom stops on empty country roads. Last year’s race was cancelled/postponed due to the fires in Paradise, and for whatever reason — probably low registration fees, the willingness to help field a full women’s team, and the not-to-be-dismissed desire for redemption — I signed-up for the 2019 iteration.
Again, if you’ve been reading my stuff for a while, you probably remember that historically, half marathons and I don’t really jibe well, typically because I’m more-often-than-not in the thick of marathon training (hello cumulative fatigue!), and/or my stomach falls to pieces. So far in 2019, I ran the Silicon Valley half as a workout (that actually went pretty well, surprisingly), and in late July, I ran the second half marathon at SF for funsies on basically untrained/residual marathon fitness legs. At any rate, going into Clarksburg, I figured I should at least be able to fare better than I did at SF (barely squeaking in with a 1:49), but with no fast running under my belt recently (other than weekly XC races) and very limited time and volume on roads lately, I rightfully had no idea what to expect.
The tl;dr version: I’m delighted to say it wasn’t terrible. I finished in 1:46 and change, and as much as my record-keeping indicates, it was my longest run on roads since (wait for it)… the SF half in late July, which kinda blows my mind. I haven’t been running super long lately (aside from a couple 16 milers on trails in the past ~month), and my medium-distance LRs have typically topped out around 10-12 miles, almost exclusively on trails. I ain’t mad about it, but it baffles me that I’ve managed to go literal months without posting any significant-distance LRs on roads. Who am I??
seeing Lisa mid-race on an OAB portion of the course and getting really excited. (see how there’s practically no one behind me or in front of me? that’s what it felt like all race) (PC: Lisa)
Logistically speaking, everything about Clarksburg this year was the same as it was a couple years ago when I last ran there: easy race-day pickup, a suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper flat course (like, 9’ of elevation gain flat), desolate country roads, everything. It’s a course that’s obviously conducive to super fast times, though maybe one day my own performance will help verify that claim.
getting closer! (PC: Lisa)
I’m so grateful that Coach Lisa drove up most of our team the 2-hours-and-change journey northward, and having both a full men’s and women’s team out there made the experience really fun. There aren’t many OAB sections on the course, but the few times there were, it was such a nice pick-me-up to cheer for my fellow harriers. Plus, I got to spend most of my Sunday morning with teammates I rarely get to see, which is awesome.
yay running (PC: Lisa)
In terms of my actual racing performance, I went out a bit too aggressively, given my relative fitness, faded for a bit, and then rallied at the very end. In these PA races, gun time is what matters most, so it behooves runners to toe the line (or get as close to it as they can, anyway) and get outta dodge FAST. Somewhere in the mix of the race, I swore off this distance and this actual race forever, too, even though I didn’t feel particularly bad at any time, maybe just a little uninspired. (I had a lot of those internal “be so grateful you’re out here!” conversations, and they did a good job of re-centering me appropriately). My teammate, Maria, and I hung together for the first few miles before I bid her adieu (great job, gf!), and I more-or-less ran sola for the near-entirety of the race. My stomach held it together well, though by the race’s end, it was getting pretty uncomfortable and distressed.
finishing the thing with Sam and Anica cheering me on (PC: Lisa)
A 1:46 isn’t my fastest or slowest half time, and ultimately, averaging a low-8 pace for what was essentially a training run was solidly fine, given my fitness right now. It’s bizarre to me that I haven’t run that far on roads since late July, but then again, when I think about my past few months’ worth of training in big picture terms, it makes a lot of sense; I’ve been spending way more time on trails and chasing elevation than I have been running monster long distances on the rolling roads near home.
I always say that one of these days, I’ll actually and properly train for a half marathon, but these plans have yet to materialize; there’s just so much other stuff I want to do instead. At any rate, If you’re local and are looking for a fast half in early November, Clarksburg is a pretty solid race choice. Just like I said a couple years ago, however, if you’re into big crowds and lots of fanfare, this race won’t offer you any of that (though you might get lucky and end up on a local news show, like my teammates and I did). It’s charming in the way that small races usually are, but its organization rivals that of its top-tier, significantly larger and more robust competitors. Plus, if you’re into wine country and stuff along those lines, this race may be attractive due to its proximity to all that (and if not, that’s ok, too! The country roads and vineyards are still pretty in their own rite). I don’t know why this race is on the PA circuit, but in a way, I’m glad it is, because I would have never had a reason to venture up that way otherwise.
two full teams, yay!
We have one more down week before the regional champs for XC, and I am delighted to say that I won’t be racing this upcoming weekend (shockingly!). Instead, I’ll be celebrating our wedding anniversary and my birthday all week long 🙂
Local friends, again, open invite to come play at the XC championship race in Golden Gate Park, at Lindley Meadow, two Sundays from now (November 17)! It’s guaranteed to be a good (very hard) and fun time. 🙂
My restrictive schedule over the past few weeks made sneaking in a half marathon tune-up race, ideally about a month out from CIM, pretty challenging. There are definitely many HM options in the Bay Area at this time/all times of the year; it’s just that very few of them worked for me because of other, non-running commitments I’ve had on my weekend calendar (all good things though!).
Plus, to be honest, HMs intimidate me, and especially in the throes of marathon training. That intimidation isn’t enough to completely turn me off from doing them during training, but it does make me less-than-enthusiastic to register for them. Typically, I often don’t perform better than GMP, in terms of my time, and of late, my HMs have been beset by other annoying externalities that negatively affect my performance (such as the weather, a challenging course topography, and the ever-popular GI issues mid-run). It’s certainly not the end of the world, but it’s definitely annoying.
Eventually, I came upon Redwood City’s Oktoberun half marathon, scheduled about 5 weeks out from CIM, on the last Sunday in October, and somewhat miraculously, it worked with my schedule. From what I could glean about the course, and from what I remembered from reading my peers’ RRs from previous years, the course would be flat and fast, and the whole shebang would be a fairly no-frills, inexpensive experience. That’ll work! RC is just about 26 miles up the peninsula, about halfway between here and SF, which was also convenient.
race logo. in case you were wondering.
Coach Lisa’s plan for the day was that I’d run the first four miles around GMP and then run HM for the remaining nine, with the option to pick it up at the end, depending on how I felt. I’d take SiS at about miles 4-5 and then again around 9-10 and would supplement with fluids as often as my stomach could handle it. By approaching the race as a long run workout, I didn’t feel any pressure to necessarily “race race” or perform, which was great. Instead, I merely had to focus on executing the workout as prescribed. (There’s probably just a slight difference in semantics between “performing” and “executing,” but to me, the difference is substantial).
After a super easy warm-up mile, singular, and then chatting with the many friends I saw that morning (Robin, Margot, Sesa, Jen, Angela, Claire and Patrick, and more I’m surely forgetting, sorry), we were off. It was pretty perfect racing weather, and I was feeling really good from the start. I caught up to the 1:40 pacer, who — delightfully — was my buddy, Sarbajeet. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, so it was great to catch up with him and talk about CIM plans, how he’s going to Boston for the first time in 2019, family happenings, and all types of dorky runner stuff that just makes my heart sing. Staying with him for the first four miles was also excellent because it helped me to stay honest about my pacing and to better follow Lisa’s plans for the day. I felt comfortable and had no problem running my mouth while keeping GMPish, which was encouraging.
Aside from maybe the first (and then final) mile of the course, most everything else was on the Bay Trail and/or through little HOAs that abut the Bay Trail. It seemed that very little of the “Redwood City” race was actually in the city, proper, and with no redwoods to be seen, and that we instead spent a lot of time alternating between running next to 101, running through HOAs, and then running on sections of the Bay Trail that were pavement, dirt, or loose gravel. I imagine it’s way less money for the race to get permits when they set up races in this way — as opposed to shutting down entire swaths of a city — but it can get monotonous at times. Fortunately, I couldn’t recall ever running on those sections of the Bay Trail (and had spent very little time in RC before), so I was trying to take in the scenery while doing my workout. If nothing else, it was nice to be away from cars and roads open to vehicular traffic.
running by water … guess who took this picture?!
Soon after I split from Sarbajeet and his pace group at mile 4, I downed an SiS gel and concentrated on hitting the HM pace range targets that Lisa had set for me. It meant dropping from a 7:33/7:40ish to 7:09/7:16ish, and more than that, it meant not being an idiot at mile five of a HM. I think part of the reason I have historically struggled with this distance is because I go out like I’m doing a mile time trial or something (note to self: a HM is not a 5k or a mile; don’t run it like one) and then I just taaaaaaaank and finish completely demoralized. At this race, I was determined *not* to do that and found myself really focused on staying in each mile and thinking about how the mile *felt* versus what I was reading on my watch. I was hopeful that I could do what Lisa told me to do.
A quick aside: for reasons inexplicable to me, during this training cycle for CIM, I have found that I’m looking less and less often at my watch, even during workouts and races. Instead, I’ve been relying more on my perceived effort and using that to guide me to work harder or to ease up. I find this especially interesting because it wasn’t as though I ever really clock-watched all that much during races or workouts in the first place, before this cycle. Now, however, I almost feel like I could ditch the watch altogether because I’m barely referring to it mid-run for pacing feedback (though admittedly, I think I’ll always wear something just to have the data points later down the line). If anything, I glance at it during races/runs/workouts to check on the time of day or on the mileage, but I’m barely looking at the paces most of the time. I’m not sure what to make of it.
chasing down someone about half my age and not be able to see at all (thanks sun)
Anyway, the nine mile workout portion felt pretty good overall, and I was completely surprised to see Lisa pull up alongside me on her bike around mile 6 or so, just shortly after I began the harder running portion of the race. We chatted briefly before she left, and by about mile 7ish, runners did a quick U-turn and began their journeys back to downtown RC. Along the way, I gave and received so many side fives from friends on various portions of their outs/backs that strangers were visibly and audibly laughing at me over it, which was fantastic. (There really is nothing like a solid side-five shared with friends mid-race). It was especially curious when Robin and I side-fived and my hand had dirt in it afterward — ohmygosh did she fall mid-race?! How did she fall?? Is she ok!? How is this going to affect her PR attempt?! — but aside from trying to Sherlock about this mystery dirt presence for a few miles, the side-fives were awesome little pick-me-ups that stayed with me for a while. (Note: Robin did fall, and she was fine. Her words. And I think she still eked out a PR like a boss. Cray).
TFW when your coach/teammate/friend/inspo pulls up alongside you mid-race, rather unexpectedly (PS where’s your helmet?!?)
By about mile nine, my legs were beginning to feel tired and sorta powerless, like every footfall I took into the dirt/gravel mix took way more energy to propel myself forward than it should. I felt like every step I was taking was just making me sink more and more deeply into the ground, which made for an interesting strength workout mid-HM. Must! Pick! Up! Legs! Come! On! Hamstrings! I had a lot of moments with myself over this — convincing myself that it was in my head, or that I was tired from the cumulative fatigue of training, and that I wasn’t tapered at all (by design) for this race, since I had just done a workout a few days prior, all that stuff — and just kept keeping on. What else are you going to do in a race, ya know? You can stop, yes, but you still have to get back to the finish line somehow. You could slow down, sure, but it’ll still just take longer to get back. The fastest way out is through. I tried to just keep grinding and began playing the “30 minutes of running left, that’s like 1 minute 30 times; I can run for 1 minute 30 times” mental BS that we all surely subject ourselves to when we get tired. It works!
the scenery was pretty, for the most part anyway (save for when we were adjacent to 101).
When I wasn’t playing that fun game, by about mile 10, once we were back near 101 and getting closer to RC, I began playing the I wonder if I can catch that person ahead of me wearing ________ game, which made the time go by even faster (and which helped me pull ahead of four-five people in the back 10k of the course). I didn’t dare look at my watch at all for the final 3-4 miles because I wanted to keep continuing with the effort, regardless of what my watch would tell me. During this fun game, I tried to focus my energies on catching the people furthest away from me and played a game that (I think) Deena wrote about in her autobiography, wherein you imagine that there’s a rope tied between you and the other runner up ahead and you have to pull yourself closer to that person. Again: whatever works. That seemed to do the job.
distracting myself by pulling a Lisa and doing finger guns
My mental math attempts were for absolute shit at the end of the race, but since I was ahead of Sarbajeet, I knew that *barring catastrophe* I’d finish in a sub-1:40. It was hard to run tangents perfectly in the race due to how the course was set-up, so my watch was (acceptably) about .1 ahead of the mile markers. I didn’t recall seeing any other pace groups between 1:30 and Sarbajeet, and as I was getting closer to finishing, I thought that I may be able to post about a 1:38, which for me, in the thick of marathon training, and as a workout, would be solid. I was thrilled to get closer to the finish line (and hear Claire and her family just steps from the finish line) and realize that my math was worse than ever and that I was actually going to finish in 1:36. Yeah!
hooray for a solid HM! that deep eyebrow furrow means GAME ON (PC, this and all previous: Lisa)
Because of all those externalities I mentioned earlier, I seem to run a good-for-me half marathon every couple years, so I was delighted that it happened at the Oktoberun. The other two half marathons I can remember running this year were met with very different outcomes — Silicon Valley half as the first big distance run that I completed post-stroke, when I was building up my endurance again; and the half in Ohio this summer that was super hilly and super humid — so it was nice to run the Oktoberun half, even as a workout, and get a little better idea of my fitness. 1:36 is a bit off my PR (1:33/1:31*), but given the conditions surrounding the day (doing it as a workout, on untapered legs, in the thick of marathon training, yadda yadda yadda), I was ecstatic. Plus, I didn’t shit myself mid-race, so that’s pretty awesome too (especially for me during HMs).
After another super easy cool-down mile, singular, because I was being lazy, and then chatting again with Robin, David, Sesa, Margot, and Claire’s family, I hauled back to the south bay for day two of my eldest’s swim meet and gloriously made it before her first event. I had a really positive experience at the Redwood City Oktoberun and would recommend it to folks who are looking for a tune-up before CIM and who want something low-frills. The course is super flat, though I think it can be challenging to run ultra fast in parts just because of the varying terrain (pavement, gravel, dirt). It’s not an enormous field or rife with spectator support or anything like that, but if those elements aren’t important to you, then it’d be a great fit. It definitely has that nice little “community race” vibe to it, and it benefits RC’s public schools, which is nice to get behind. I think I’d do it again if I wanted to do another HM in advance of CIM next year (and especially compared to more expensive or farther afield options).
friends! with Sesa and Margot post-race. Seeing them mid-race was lovely (PC: Sesa)
I don’t ask for much in races these days — just an accurately measured course that’s safe — and I think this one delivered. This was my last race as a 34 year-old (woot!), and now, only one more race — XC champs — stands between CIM and me.
