Mississippi Blues Marathon, Jackson MS

Marathon number 62, state number 43. Seven left: Vermont, New Hampshire, Maryland, West Virginia, New Mexico, Alaska, and Hawaii. We have a plan for running a marathon in each of those states in 2012. Lots of things can go wrong though - we’ll see if it all works out.

My race:

• No injuries! HOORAY. More below in the "whining" section.
  
• I explained my situation to one guy, that I was running with cancer, seeking to finish the 50 states while I could still run, and he congratulated me on that active lifestyle, complaining that too many people with incurable cancer are too busy dying.
  
• I’m not sure that I know any of those people; the ones I know in the support group are pretty busy living, but he may be right.
  
• I started a little slowly because the race course was hilly, so it’s possible that I could have gone a little faster, but not much.
  
• For the first seven miles I ran with Elvis! He liked to talk, so he ran my pace, but he was breathing pretty hard and I eventually left him behind to talk with some other folks.
  
• One man in the race ran 113 marathons last year. By comparison, I ran 13 and thought it was a lot. He ran more than two a week.- I’m not even sure how you do that! It must be a logistical nightmare just getting from one place to another.

The Marathon:

• Organization was great.
  
• Volunteers were wonderful! We drove the race course the day before the race, and Sunshine commented that it would take a million volunteers to keep us on course and guard the side streets. Yup, it did, and there were a million of them!
  
• Mile markers were nice, and hard to miss (though I missed a few anyway).
  
• Aid stations were plentiful, with both water and energy drink, and there were at least three gel stations.
  
• It’s hilly! We spent more time and distance going up or down than we did on the flat. No complaint - they said it would be hilly.
  
• There was music here and there, and I enjoyed it.
  
• Food after the race was great.
  
• Complaints:
  • The course was entirely on city streets, and not more than a mile of those streets were closed to traffic. A lot of the race was in residential neighborhoods, and traffic there was light, but some was on more heavily traveled roads with traffic moving faster. That’s never very comfortable.
    
  • The running lane was always coned off, but on most streets this put the runners on the edge of the road, where the running surface was usually sloped sideways. I’m very happy and a little surprised that I didn’t have any knee or hip problems, as I have in the past from this kind of course.
    
  • The streets of Jackson are in very poor condition. Runners definitely had to watch their step to avoid tripping on a bump or stepping into a pothole.
    
  • I know that it’s hard to lay out a course, but this one didn’t take us past the current state capitol building or the Supreme Court building, and I’m not sure about other landmarks. I don’t remember many city parks, or any other scenic areas (rivers?), mostly residences, including a few burned-out ones. I did see lots of churches, though.
    
  • Bottom line: I didn’t like the course. I have no other complaints about the race at all.

Whining:

• The PFS (runner’s knee) showed up by mile seven but never really bothered. Hooray!
  
• Similarly, the abdominal wall strain (sports hernia) also showed up around mile seven but never became a problem.
  
• At one point my left leg went a little numb for a while, then slowly returned to normal. It happened while I was walking. I hope this was an anomaly and not a new problem.

Splits: 37:16 (3 mi), 38:04 (3 mi, chatting w Elvis), 12:19, 11:49, 12:11, 25:39 (2 mi), 12:58, 11:50, 1:30 (0.11 mi, half-marathon point 2:43:37), 10:52 (remainder of mile 14), 12:37, 25:21, 12:12, 16:40 (potty stop), 12:54, 12:53, 13:42, 12:34, 13:03, 12:30, 14:37 (1.22 miles to finish). Total 5:33:33, according to my watch. Official results are not up yet and may be slightly different.

This was a city street, and a lot of them were as rough as this half mile:

Last Runs of 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011:

St Croix Valley Runners. We meet every Saturday morning at the Northland Tennis Courts along County Road 12. This morning there were seven of us, two walking and five running. I started out with Dave, but then left him and shortened the usual 5-mile route down to 3.5 miles, because I was feeling some pains and have a marathon coming up in a week. I finished the 3.5 miles in 33:22, though, for a pace of 9:32. I’ll take it.

Whining: The right knee with PFS did hurt a little, most of the way. I’ll have to do something about that.

Wednesday, December 28:

One more winter run in the park. I can’t remember when we could run on the grass trails after Christmas, but today the ground is almost bare. The ground was frozen, though, and the grass matted down, so the trail was a bit harder than usual. 4.8 miles in 49 minutes, for a pace just over 10 minutes/mile. OK for today. I ran most of the way, except a few of the downhills.

Whining: The sports hernia hurt a little, mostly in the beginning. The right-knee PFS (“runner’s knee”) squawked more than it has for several months. I hope it goes away again.

You can almost see the oatmeal under there:

Fortitude for First Descents Marathon, Lewes, Delaware

This sweet little marathon was scheduled for August in Cape Henlopen State Park, but was rescheduled because of a hurricane that came by exactly at the wrong time. That was our good fortune, though, because we couldn’t make it in August.

The mission of the marathon is fund-raising. "First Descents is committed to curing young adults of the emotional effects of cancer and empowering them to regain control of their lives by experiencing outdoor adventure therapy through kayaking, rock climbing and other outdoor adventure sports." We didn’t contribute much to the fund-raising, just the entry fee, but we definitely enjoyed their marathon.

Good Stuff:

• It wasn’t a certified race, but I think it was at least 26.2 miles. All three of us agreed that we worked just as hard as we had in the recent rainy and hilly Seattle Marathon, and we needed just a bit more time to finish this one than we needed in Seattle.
  
• The spark plug of the race is Elysa, I think, who is also on another mission: www.racethestates.com. If so, then I think that Lynne (at run the day dot com) was the engine. She did LOTS.
  
• The course is relatively flat. I can think of three places where I was glad to get to the top, but actually the top wasn’t very high. It’s not quite flat, but it’s not really hilly either.
  
• The course was a combination of roads, paved trails, and crushed-rock trail. Honestly I loved that rocky trail, winding through the woods, up hill and down dale. It was well made and I would have been delighted to run the whole 26 miles on it. Alas, that piece was probably only a mile long, but we did it four times!
  
• Cape Henlopen State Park is a pine forest, with the forest floor covered in brown pine needles. I saw some junipers too, but mostly is was pine, whatever kind of pine will grow in sand.
  
• Marathoners ran the 6.55-mile loop through the forest four times, while the half-marathoners ran it twice. In addition, another quarter mile or so was tacked on the front of the race, because, perhaps, the race organizers wanted to be sure that the course wasn’t short. I didn’t ask about that though.
  
• There were three aid stations, placed a little over two miles apart. Each had water, energy drink, energy gels, and delightful volunteers.
  
• The U.S. Army shares part of the park, and assisted at some of the aid stations. Also, along the way, are relics of the armaments of World War II, with 8-inch guns (I think) for taking out ships and submarines, and 3-inch guns (for sure) for air defense, along with many well-spaced mostly-underground munitions bunkers.
  
• German submarines actually sank 400 vessels off the East Coast of the U.S. during that war. Delaware bay gives access to several major ports, which would have been vulnerable to attack, hence the formidable defenses.
  
• A German sub surrendered off Cape Henlopen, after hearing that the war had ended. No shots fired.
  
• Considering the pine forest, the rocky trail, the war history, and splendid views of the ocean, I didn’t mind repeating the same loop four times. Delightful.
  
• Weather was pretty good, considering what it could have been. Average temperature was probably between 40 and 42, with sunny skies for the first two loops and cloudy for the last two, but no rain. The only problem was wind, which was muted by the pines much of the way.
  
• Also, according to the race web site, the horseflies are fewer at this time of year! Indeed, there were none.
  
• Not so good: They had soup and other food for race finishers, but that shut down early, probably about 5 hours after the start. Really, if it’s a six-hour marathon, the finishers’ area should stay open for six hours! If the aid-station volunteers can tough it out in the wind, then so can the people in the warm building.

My Race:

• Marathon number 61, state number 42, finish time 5:32:40, probably third of three in my ancient age group of 70 and up (results are not up yet).
  
• Early on I thought I was running short on energy, but that didn’t happen. The last loop was only a little slower than the others.
  
• I ran and walked, as usual. Most of the time I ran 30 seconds and walked about 50, but often cut the walking part shorter. I suppose that I actually ran more than half the distance, though not half the time.
  
• I passed our car four times on the course, so I used it as a private aid station, dropping a shirt after the first loop and picking up gels three times.
  
• The temperature was right on the edge for shorts, but they worked out fine. For most of the way I wore a wind jacket over a single long-sleeved wicking shirt, plus ear cover and gloves.
  
• Interesting: Our car remotes worked very poorly in the parking lot, and even worse near the finish-area building. We thought something in the car had failed. However, I suspect that a nearby radar installation was interfering with the tiny radio signals from the remotes. They work just fine now, away from the park.
  
• Six gels (with caffeine, the only legal performance-enhancing drug), eight or nine ThermoTab salt tablets. I took one or the other at every aid station.
  
• Because of the interesting multi-loop course and a few out-back segments I bumped into my sweeties running the half marathon at least three times. I like that.
  
• Whining: The right knee hurt just a little, but that went away. The “sports hernia” (abdominal wall strain) hurt a bit toward the end, but was never a limiting factor. The left hamstrings got sore, up near the top of the muscles, but were not limiting. Calves threatened to cramp, but didn’t. All in all, pace was limited by energy and nothing else. I probably couldn’t have run it much faster.

Splits: This was partly a trail marathon, so there were no mile markers, but I recorded a few times passing the finish line: 1:24:22 (one loop plus maybe 1/4 mile), 2:43:13 (two loops), 1:25:04 (one loop), total 5:32:40, overall pace 12:41. Again, though, I believe that the course might have been at least a quarter mile long. That’s OK - better long than short!

Sunshine and Don discussing the course during the race:

Short Run in the Park

We three ran in the park again this morning. We drove there, a short distance from home, and when we parked I found the grass trails beckoning to me - they looked so good. I had my best shoes on, however, and the grass trails are a bit muddy, so I took the paved trails instead.

The right knee with PFS (runner’s knee) hurt a little bit right from the start, in the center of the kneecap, so after a half mile I switched from running 100% to walking for 30 seconds every now and then. It helped a lot, and the pain gradually disappeared. It came back later, so I stopped to massage/manipulate the kneecap. That seemed to lessen the pain and move it to the top of the kneecap. 3.6 miles in 37:12, pace 10:20. Tapering, it’ll do.

Wood Ticks Galore

I ran in the park again, on the grass trails, in the morning this time. 65 degrees and clear, little wind, already a beautiful day.

Last Friday I came home from the grass trails with a dozen ticks in my shoes and a couple crawling on my legs; this morning not so many but at least three. I don’t think these are the tiny deer ticks that spread Lyme disease and babesiosis, but the larger American Dog ticks (wood ticks) familiar to most Minnesotans. They can spread Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and other infections, but mostly they are creepy and gross. Either way, no one wants them to latch on and feed so we do inspect ourselves. We often see these in the spring, but I don’t recall so many, or so late in the spring.

After each run I left my running shoes and socks outside on a wooden table for a while, where the ticks crawled out of the shoes and up onto the shoelaces, as if they were blades of grass, ready to latch onto the first passerby. Indeed, when I put my finger near a tick it quickly reached out two of its eight legs, glommed on, and crawled up my hand. Another of nature’s marvels. Yuck.

The run went OK or better until the very end. I was formulating the log post in my mind, something like “finally pain-free,” when the right knee suddenly howled, hurting even more when I finished the run and started walking. I’m not positive that this pain was the diagnosed patellofemoral syndrome, though, because it was at the lower right corner of the kneecap, whereas more recently the PFS had been more in the center of the kneecap.

Oh well, that “pain-free” headline will have to wait. I’ll keep doing the therapy, and running, and will put up with the pain as long as it’s manageable.

4.8 miles in about 52 minutes (I forgot my watch), pace about 10:50. It’s good enough - I stopped briefly a couple of times to take pictures, and didn’t stop my watch.

RATS!

Thursday, June 2, 2011:

I ran “marathon pace” today, hoping and almost expecting to run pain-free on the paved trails by running 30 seconds and walking 60. Just 3.6 miles on the park’s paved trails, I was starting to feel almost smug about this temporary solution to the runner’s knee problem. Then, in the last two-tenths of a mile, a pain shot through the right kneecap, leaving me hopping on the left. I walked for a while, and then could run again briefly, but the pain was still there, skulking, threatening to pounce once more.

When the pain first hit, I was running on a trail which was slanted to the right. I’m assuming that the kneecap slid to the left on the knee, “popping” slightly out of its normal groove. That’s how patellofemoral pain syndrome (runner’s knee) works. I don’t know if the trail was slanted when this has happened before, but I do know I’ll do my best to limit right-slanted pavement on the next marathon.

Anyway, the idea was to run this pace to see how the time would actually come out. I don’t think that the pain episode issue changed things much, because it happened so close to the end of the run. Thus I ran 3.6 miles in 43:34, which comes to 12:06, quite a bit better than I had expected. My calculations, based on a presumed running pace of 9:30 min/mi and walking of 15:00, had predicted about 12:36 min/mi. 12:06 would be a 5:17 marathon, and 12:36 would be 5:30. I’d sure love to be running below five hours again, but that won’t happen until I get past the recent rash of minor injuries.

Breakfast after a longer run: Color is good. Most everything is organic. There is oatmeal under there somewhere. The yogurt is plain, organic:

No Pain!

Jim and I enjoyed a wonderful, cool, but sunny 5-mile run on the grass/dirt trails in the park this morning. He is recovering from an injury, and I am trying to get past "runner’s knee." He didn’t complain of pain, and neither did I. The knee muttered softly, but never really called out about any problem. I ran all of the way except over short fields of gopher holes, and down a few steep hills. I ran uphill! Toward the end I was pooped, unfortunately, but this was fast for me (usually is with Jim) and endurance will come if I can run like this more frequently and longer.

5.0 miles in 51 minutes even - that’s a pace of 10:12, which is very good for me on these hilly trails. It’s a masterpiece!

Tonight's dinner: Chicken bake with leftover organic chicken, organic peas & spinach, quinoa, and three cheeses. Add organic grapes, organic strawberries, and colorful organic heritage plum tomatos. Plus a bottle of pretty good beer.

Patellofemoral Syndrome (Runner’s Knee)

Wednesday, May 25, 2011:

The Woodbury Runners were reduced to just four today by a competing 3M Club picnic, as many of the Woodbury Runners are also 3M employees. Rich and I ran behind Pete and Mark, WAY behind actually, completing a 5.8-mile loop in 1:01:51, for a pace of 10:40. I could have sworn it was faster, actually, because I was working mighty hard to keep up with Rich, but that’s a hilly course and I guess we did OK. Patellofemoral (PFS) pain in the right knee was minor!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011:

I had my first therapy session today, and the therapist, also a runner, definitely agreed with the doctor’s diagnosis of patellofemoral syndrome (PFS). When I objected that the pain strikes very suddenly, in one stride, she explained that the kneecap (patella) can suddenly slip sideways off the groove in which it is supposed to ride. It may occur in runners with tight ligaments or muscles, imbalanced muscle pull, or an incorrect angle of knee alignment.

The therapist diagnosed both tight muscles/ligaments and imbalanced muscle pull (weak muscles), and prescribed five different core-strengthening exercises to be done along with my usual runner’s stretches. Three more sessions are scheduled, and at least one will include an evaluation of my running form. Hey, I’m interested.

The good news is: In my case, I can run with PFS pain without concern about further injuring the knee. If I can stand the pain, I can run, except, of course, pain means that the PFS will not heal as quickly. See - that’s why you want a runner as your therapist or trainer. Anyone else would just say “stop running,” but a runner understands what a sacrifice that is and will explain the tradeoff. OK, I get it.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011:

Six miles on the grass/gravel/dirt trails in the park, almost all running, very intense. I decided to see if the patellofemoral pain would appear, on the morning just before the first therapy session. It only barely showed up, and the pain felt like it was higher in the kneecap than on prior occasions. It seems to show up a little less when running on dirt than on pavement, and it actually disappeared as I ran, even though I did as little walking as possible.

6.24 miles in 1:12:27, pace 11:37. I can do better than THAT on those trails, but I was bushed today from yesterday’s yard work, which included hours of chain-sawing a nephew’s tornado-downed trees, and more. It’s good to be tired from physical exertion, though, makes for excellent sleep.

Saturday, May 21, 2011:

The world didn’t end today. Good thing, too, because otherwise our trip down to Mayo Clinic would have been a huge waste of time. We heard an acclaimed doctor discuss new treatments for myeloma, very interesting to me but only of future value.

Gateway trail today, I did the walk/run, 30 seconds and 30 seconds, and experienced very little pain. This was a good run - it’s a masterpiece.

Splits: 11:37, 11:14, 11:57, 11:40, 11:33, 11:43, 11:59, total 1:21:46, seven miles, pace 11:41.

A breakfast that doesn't leave you hungry by 10:00 am: