Chicago lakefront

I’ve been for two runs along the lakefront in Chicago on two beautiful clear days. Yesterday I ran south, which I think is the nicer direction to head from the city as you get to cross Grant Park and it is not as bleak as heading north.  Both days it was windy but while running I was completely protected from the wind. It wasn’t even all that cold.

So yesterday I retraced some of the Turkey Trot but continued past the museum, aquarium and planetarium where you can run right next to the water. From along here are good views of the city skyline, looking back. It was 8am but not many people were about. I continued on past a little beach and into some scrub. Actually the trail had a sign saying it was closed, and further on even a barricade, but I ignored these as I could see where the trail ended at a bridge. Inland I think there was some kind of scrap metal junk yard, a cemetery and nothing at all scenic. 

I turned back at the bridge and returned to Grant Park. On the way back I saw a few runners. At the top end of Grant Park I stayed by the lake and picked up the Riverwalk, so I could get back to my hotel without having to go on any roads. 12 kilometres all up.

Today I took the Riverwalk to Navy Pier, which involved an underpass. I was following someone and ended up running part way down the pier, which I had not intended, so I turned back and found my way onto the Lakefront trail again. On this side of the city the trail was wide, with two lanes for bikes and two lanes for runners, and there were plenty of runners. The trail was by the sandy lake shore, but alongside a busy road on the other side. You could see ahead a long way. It was kind of bleak, flat and quite honestly a bit disappointing.

I enjoyed passing some flocks of geese who were chomping away happily on the grass. They looked up occasionally but were very intent on their feeding. I kept going until my designated turnaround by a small cafe and park, then headed back. The views of the city were good.

Then I got confused coming back into the city. I wanted to avoid the underpass and I managed to do so but I inadvertently did some extra distance. I ended up by what I thought was the river but it was just a dead end. Eventually I found the Riverwalk and got back, same distance as yesterday.

Chicago Turkey Trot

At last an age group first place!

I had fun at the Grant Park Turkey Trot 5 km in Chicago this morning. I jogged slowly to the race start and got there very early because I was worried about check-in queues. It didn’t seem too cold to me, dressed in tights, long sleeves and my new jacket (which is so flimsy it looks like it would do nothing but is actually very wind proof). When I got there, having had trouble finding the right place because they were not yet set up, there were certainly no queues and I registered immediately. I got an XS size fleece as my race swag, which looked as though it might fit me, in contrast with the ridiculous things I have got at previous races on this trip.

I walked around the park in the hour I had to wait until the start. It was freezing. The wind was icy and I couldn’t find a way to get out of it. I walked by the lake, eyeing up the ducks, and wandered through some groves of bare trees. By the time I returned to the start area it was extremely crowded and the registration queue was extremely long. So was the bag drop queue, and I got even colder standing still so I decided to wrap my jacket around my waist.

The sun came out just before we started and warmed me enough to be able to remove my jacket, having just decided moments before that I would have to keep it on. So I ran with my new fleece and my jacket around my waist - I was all prepared for whatever weather was coming during my five kilometres!

I ran as fast as I could and made a conscious effort not to slack off. I picked out people ahead of me and tried to keep up with them. As you’d expect in a race like this, lots of people set out very fast and soon came to a halt but there were also some good runners. We sort of looped around the wintry park and then ran by the lake exactly where I had walked. There wasn’t much to look at. 

I wasn’t overjoyed with my time because I thought I could run faster, I expected to at least break 25 minutes but I finished in 26:08. Well, it was good enough for first place and I was near the front of the field so I shouldn’t complain.

At the finish we were given a cinnamon scroll, and then you could get free beer. I’ve never drunk beer before 10am before. As soon as I stopped running I was cold so I was glad of the two extra layers. I sat on the grass and watched people finishing. There were only a few runners dressed up as turkeys (and I saw one chef). 

Run for the Diamonds 9 Mile race, Berwick, PA

I was looking forward to this 9 mile race in Berwick, Pennsylvania with 1500 or so runners. It’s been going since 1908, always on Thanksgiving, and for a long time it was called the Berwick Marathon, apparently because one year the organiser noticed that this was the name given to important races!

It was cold, just above zero at breakfast time and I was in a real dilemma what to wear: I thought I should wear shorts because I get hot so easily and the photos from prior years showed many runners in shorts, but I spoke to some people at breakfast who thought it was colder this year and that most runners would wear tights. I decided on shorts and my calf sleeves. But when I got to Berwick and walked around a bit I decided to change into knee-length leggings and no calf sleeves.

We got going in the main street at 10.30. I wore my sweatshirt until the last minute and left it on the step outside a shop, not expecting to see it again, but it was waiting for me after I finished. The route was crowded at first and flat for the first mile. I was waiting for the hill I had heard about but we started with a downhill.

After a mile we started climbing. It was gradual at first but many in the field slowed down or walked. I liked the grade and even when it got steeper I was enjoying the run. I hadn’t run a step since the JFK last Saturday. I felt early on that I had made the wrong clothing choice as I warmed up quickly but later on I was glad of my leggings. It wasn’t much above freezing but it was a lovely clear day. I took off my beanie and gloves after only a few miles. We were out in rural Pennsylvania where everything looked wintry. Farmhouses, trees, horses, ponds and hills. There were loads of spectators, all very enthusiastically wishing us Happy Thanksgiving, and many were already drinking beer.

The climb was fun because it didn’t get too steep. Just before the top was a short sharp downhill; I wanted to ask someone near me if we had passed the top but I didn’t, and we hadn’t. But the top came soon, at mile 5, and the downhill was great: gradual and winding. I had expected lots of runners to pass me on the way down but this didn’t happen.

We came back into town and I could see the stop light which heralded the finish line from some way away. There had been a clock at the 8 mile marker and based on this I hoped to beat 85 minutes; initially I had hoped to beat 90 minutes but I saw from the clock I was doing better than I had anticipated. So I picked up my pace and I passed some people I had been following the whole way. 

The finish line announcer was staying at my hotel and I had been chatting to him at breakfast, so when he called out my name he gave me a special mention as Australian. I finished in 85:03 on the clock but this came down to 84:43 for chip time (I had started quite far back, which was also why I had been able to pass people) so I was satisfied. Unfortunately I only got 4th in my age group which meant no award - the younger age groups had awards five deep but mine only went to three. They gave us pizza at the finish.

JFK 50 Mile, Maryland, USA

Some races give you a chance to understand why you do all that hard training!

I didn’t come into this race in the best of spirits. I had arrived in New York on the Thursday evening for the Saturday race. On Friday I took the train to Baltimore then drove to Hagerstown, Maryland near the race start. I found the traffic terrifying and every time I tried to reach somewhere I wanted to go I seemed to take the wrong turn and have an awful time rectifying this. I even had to go to Maccas so I could use their wifi to get directions. Honest. 

And then my luggage hadn’t made it to NY with me, it was still in Melbourne, so at 5.30pm the evening before the race I was still buying shoes and clothes to run in. I was lucky to be able to find the same model of shoe that I usually wear (there's globalisation for you), and I got a light jacket, tights for the cold and the same shorts I usually wear. I had been wearing a a T shirt for the past two days so I thought I could run in it too.

I couldn't sleep on Friday night; I tried but I felt wide awake, and what amazed me was that when I got up on Saturday morning at 5am I felt completely normal. Must have been the jet lag, because on top of this I had woken up for the day at 3am on Friday. (So by the time I fell asleep around 10pm on Saturday night I had been awake for a very long time.)

I followed a long line of cars to the race parking in Boonsboro and parked in one of many parking lots, hoping I would be able to locate my car afterwards. With about 800 runners there was quite a crowd. We walked in convoy a mile to the race start in the main street, and started at 6.30am. I wasn’t sure where exactly I crossed the start line. It was really windy and the wind was icy but I thought it would be ok once we got into the woods. 

The first few miles were mainly uphill on a road. I felt a bit odd and it took a while to get used to this idea of running. Then we turned onto the Appalachian Trail, into the woods. It was real autumnal weather, that pale almost hazy light and overcast. The was an awful lot of leaf litter which disguised the big rocks and roots well so there was constant risk of tripping. Runners were commenting about poor upkeep of the trail. There were several climbs which I mainly managed to run.

The rocks got a lot worse and I had to go really carefully,  but I knew this was the worst part of the day for trail roughness. There were some steep downhills and lots of bottlenecks developed. Then it started raining. This made the rocks slippery and I was constantly sliding slightly as I put my foot down. A few people fell. They had first aid marshals along the course and when I saw one in the distance I knew I was coming to a hard patch. The marshals looked very cold. 

We were running along a ridge top but there were very few viewpoints. I could hear trains from somewhere that sounded close. As we came to the end of the trail section of the race after 15 miles there was a long and steep downhill with lots of switchbacks. We progressed down slowly in a long line. At the bottom was an aid station and just before reaching it I went to the toilet. As I came out of the toilet I saw masses of runners going by and I sort of regretted how many places I would have lost. But then, after the aid station, we had to cross the railway line and there was a train going by with an endless number of wagons. About 50 runners were waiting to cross the tracks, so I had timed my toilet stop well.

The aid stations had mainly sweet things including peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which I normally love. However after several stops to eat these I noticed that they came out of packets - prepackaged PB&J. That’s taking a good homemade food and removing the feelgood part. Although, to be fair, everything else was packaged.

As we headed out to run slightly over 26 miles on the C and O (Chesapeake and Ohio) canal towpath everyone picked up the pace. It felt so good to be on smooth ground. Runners flooded past me even though I was clearly myself running too fast. We weren’t even half way and I was feeling very tired.

Nobody had told me that the canal isn’t there any more, there's now just the towpath which is a recreation trail beside the Potomac River. I had thought we were going to run by both a canal and a river, so I felt shortchanged. The river was good and wide, brownish with many patches of small rapids, but no pleasure craft on the water and no water birds. The rain had stopped as I came off the Appalachian Trail but it soon started again. I had taken off my jacket and was just running in a T shirt because I had drawn the line yesterday at purchasing yet another technical running shirt (who runs races in cotton T shirts these days?) but it didn’t feel unpleasant. The aid stations were very frequent at first and I had a group of runners I was running among. 

Actually I wasn’t feeling good at all. The running seemed monotonous even though it was pretty with the autumnal trees and the wide river. We had a nice view of Harpers Ferry across the river and there were isolated houses on the river banks, plus many picnic areas, and some high rocky bluffs. And a few locks to cross and big bridges to look at. 

I was running out of steam with a long way to go. I kept reminding myself I had done all that training and I knew I didn’t want to waste it. I had listened to a podcast only the previous day where a researcher said that (1) sleep deprivation only has an effect on perceived fatigue and not on actual fatigue and that (2) 25% of fatigue is just your brain telling you that you are tired rather than really being tired; so I took these findings on board and spoke to myself firmly about ignoring this notion that I could be tired. It was going to be a hard day but I would make it through.

My watch had stopped working at 8am so I had no idea how I was doing for time. I could have asked people but I didn’t. Part of the fun was not knowing, but I definitely wanted to go under 12 hours because that’s a qualification time for lots of longer events. We had been told that if we reached the end of the canal towpath, 41 miles in, after 3pm we would have to wear a reflective vest for the rest of the race. So I knew that if I were handed a vest it would be after 3pm.

I got my vest and started on the road section of the race. There was immediately a big hill. It was surprisingly welcome as a change from the flatness. The route continued to undulate but with a certain amount of nice downhill. I was moving at a crawl by now but I was still moving. Ahead of me was a line of vest-clad people whom I intended to pick off before he finish. It was farmland here, cornfields and some paddocks with black cows, and still overcast. I wasn’t sure what time it would get dark but I knew it would be pitch black by 6.30pm; with full daylight at this point I felt confident I could finish this thing under 12 hours.

I counted down the miles as we came slowly into the town of Williamsburg. The light was fading fast. I told myself I was not allowed to stop running (you could hardly call it running but it wasn’t walking). I was still able to pass one or two people. We had to navigate a long stretch of roadworks; there were police cars parked along here to protect us but if it hadn’t been for the runners I could see ahead of me I would have had no idea where to go. 

Eventually a marshal told me the finish was at the top of the hill I had just started up. He didn’t tell me the hill had a false summit and a long gradual half mile climb. But I could hear finishers being announced and finally it was my turn. I only saw the clock about ten seconds before the finish, but I was delighted to see I had gone under 10 1/2 hours. Shocked, really. I had done 10:29:09 which was fantastic.

I went inside for food and warmth. I ate a pulled pork roll and pizza and hamstered M&Ms for later.  I felt awful but elated. When I went outside again it was completely dark and very much colder so I was grateful to have finished. A school bus took us back to the parking lots and I managed to find my car. Then I went straight to bed.

This morning at Lysterfield

I went for a nice run at Lysterfield. Instead of following the road down to the lake I took the Eastern Boundary Track, for the first time. There were lots of kangaroos but very shy and they hopped away from me. Twice I saw a Joey scramble into its mother's pouch.

The trail

A spectator

And then I saw this fella by the trail as I was almost done for the day.

Four races and some patchwork

I’ve been doing a few trail races over the past month, actually one each weekend for the past three weekends, and then a road race, my only road race this year. I started with the Hume and Hovell 50 km along the trail of that name just out of Tumbarumba, NSW. This is a fabulous trail with lots to look at and some tough climbing. Last year I dehydrated badly but I had high hopes this year as I used my hydration vest and was able to carry more water than previously. I secretly wanted to break 7 1/2 hours.

The route starts with an out and back across farmland and in a bit of forest. It’s not hilly but the ground is rather rough, pockmarked with ruts and holes made by the cows. Plus there are numerous stiles to clamber over, which is ok at the start when you’re fresh. 

Then you pass the start/finish and head out on another, longer, out and back, starting along the Tumbarumba Creek. It’s lovely. There are some good waterfalls and the creek flows fast, and then you cross on a big swing bridge. On my return I saw an echidna along here; actually I think I saw it before it saw me because it looked startled and then stepped off the path, but by the time the runner behind me reached it he said it was all curled up.

The climb up and over and down the other side of Mount Garland is the main feature after the creek. You climb for a long time through the forest, with several false summits and several slight descents. Both years I’ve been climbing here as the half marathoners, who start from Manus Lake, have been coming down, fast. Eventually you get to the aid station at the top, which was very enthusiastically manned this year with lots of food and loud music. From there it’s a descent to Manus Lake and I’d forgotten about going right down to the lake and then having to climb all the way back up on the trip home. Once you hit the lake shore there's a very difficult out and back to some point further up the road. It’s mildly undulating but what makes it hard is that the road is in the full sun and seems far longer than the 2 1/2 kilometres it is supposed to be.

The climb back over Mount Garland was hard and I walked a lot, but on the whole I felt better than last year. I felt my time goal slipping away however and settled for enjoying the great scenery. The last five kilometres along the creek were fun despite my fatigue. 

As I came back to the start/finish area I made a spurt and passed a couple running just ahead.  By doing this I was not only able to scrape in under 7 1/2 hours (in 7:29:38) but also made third in my age group. That was a big improvement on last year and I was happy. But I had really rinsed myself (my favourite expression these days).

The next weekend I went to Canberra for the Bush Capital Bush Marathon which is usually held in early August. So I was a bit worried about the heat. Last time I ran this one, two years ago, I had a terrible back problem and could hardly stand up, but I ran fine in the race; the following day I couldn’t move at all.

The race was lovely, as always, and there were more kangaroos out than ever, so I loved that. I ran alone most of the time, playing cat and mouse for a while with another female who had also been at the Hume and Hovell. Then I concentrated on catching another female ahead of me, which I finally managed with five kilometres to go. Then I had to work hard to be sure to keep ahead; exactly the same happened to me at this race once before in the same place, but that time I ran into third whereas this time I was running into fourth. I ran the whole way, unusually for this hilly course, and I’m not sure if it helped me achieve a great result, since I was slower than last time, but maybe due to the higher temperature. I can’t say I rinsed myself at this one!

The following weekend I decided to do the Halloween Howler 50 km at short notice. It starts at 3pm on Saturday. I made it a part of my training for my next trip to America, and planned to run about 100 kilometres over the course of three days, going 16km on Thursday, 16km on Friday, 16km in the morning and the 50km in the afternoon on Saturday.

It was very warm at the start in the You Yangs. We had to do ten laps of the five kilometre course in the forest. Quite daunting as I don’t like running laps, but it turned out fine. I was in dead last place out of 13 by the end of the first lap and I felt lightheaded in the heat, but this proved to be my fastest lap. For the next two laps I carried a water bottle. Some of the course was very sandy which made for slow going but it was very pleasant with lots of birds. By lap three I passed one of the five women and hoped to get onto the podium. I ran lap five with Cheryl (who was doing the marathon not the 50) and we passed another women so I was in third place. By lap six it was cooling down but I was starting to get bored. Laps seven and eight were the hardest from the boredom factor. On lap nine it was dusk and I looked forward to finishing. I ran lap ten in the dark with my head light. I passed a few runners who were walking but I didn’t realise they were in the ultra. So I was most surprised when I finished to find that I was half way up the field in third place and ahead of the male third place getter.

And finally I went to Portland for the marathon on Melbourne Cup weekend. As part of my heavy training I ran 20 km on the Friday then drove to Portland; I ran 20 km on the marathon route on Saturday in Portland and did a six km walk to see the seals; I ran the marathon on Sunday. 

The marathon went well although I was still tired from last weekend. I started out with David Styles to make sure I didn’t slack off at the beginning and we ran together past half way over the big hills. Then I thought I should get on ahead but he remained at my shoulder. Every time I broke away it wasn’t long before he was back again. I knew that if he made a spurt ahead of me I would not be able to match it, but fortunately that didn’t happen. At the 35 km aid station I managed to get ahead. The last kilometres were hard and I was well on the way to rinsing myself. I passed a youngish guy who clearly didn’t like being chicked - I had to pass him three times to get clear. The late hills in the race were a surprise, as they are every time. In the final kilometre I passed Brian Glover who was walking his 200th marathon, so I was able to see him finish. I finished in a respectable sixth place, in 4:18, not as fast as four years ago but the conditions may not have been as good. We had a head wind for the last part. This marked the end of my six week training block.

And I've been sewing!

My pelican

My wren and (below) my red cardinal