I ran the Garry Bjorklund Half-Marathon yesterday, finishing in a time of 1:35:30.
This was my 7th time going to Duluth, Minnesota in June to run either Grandma's Marathon or the Garry Bjorklund Half-Marathon. Duluth is a long and expensive trip from the DC area - it's a 2.5 hour flight plus a 2.5 hour drive, and that doesn't include time spent at the airport, renting a car, etc. But I go anyway, because I think highly of these two races in general, and Duluth is honestly a pretty cool place to visit that I wouldn't bother to go to if I didn't have a reason.
The race is on Saturday, but like always, I flew out on Thursday to give me a day's worth of wiggle room in case there were any travel issues. As it turned out, my Thursday morning flight was overbooked, with Delta offering ever-increasing amounts of compensation (in the form of the gift card of your choice) to anyone who would give up their seats. Two people gave up their seats when $900 was offered, but there was still one person too many, and the offer kept increasing.
By the time it hit $1500 I was checking the weather and air quality forecasts for Duluth on Saturday - if either had looked off, I would have taken the money and skipped the trip. But both forecasts looked great and someone hit their call button as soon as the offer hit $1700, so my seatbelt stayed fastened.
Despite all of the pre-flight negotiations, the flight left and landed on time. Shortly thereafter, I was in a rental car on my way to Duluth, with the only hiccup being that the satellite radio that I had requested (and paid for) in my car wasn't working.
I first found a decent Minneapolis FM radio station that played song after song that I remembered and loved (Prince - "When the Doves Cry"; Def Leppard - "Pour Some Sugar on Me"). Then I realized that the station self-identified as "Oldies" and I decided I couldn't listen to it anymore.
It wasn't a great loss anyway, since I'd soon be out of range for that station. I hooked my cell phone up to the car stereo and cued up a YouTube futurepop playlist I had recently curated, and that kept me happy for the rest of the trip up.
***
Every previous year, I've stayed at the UMD dorms in Duluth. They are a great deal, and convenient. But they also lack both air conditioning and blackout curtains, and so I decided to upgrade to a real hotel this year. I went with the Residence Inn near Miller Hill Mall - it ended up being a great place to stay (it felt luxurious after so many years in a dorm) and the close proximity to Chipotle was a plus.
I woke up Friday morning for my shakeout on the Lakefront path and realized that my legs were quite stiff and awkward, with the dystonia acting up. This wasn't surprising, as I had done too little speedwork on Tuesday. (We're all unique, and for me, when tapering I need to reduce the volume but hold steady or even increase the intensity of my workouts the week before a race in order to feel good). I would have normally done 2-4 miles easy on Friday morning, but I upped it to 6 miles because that's what I needed to loosen the legs up and feel good. The good news was that I finished Friday morning's run feeling good and ready for Saturday.
***
The Half-Marathon started at 6 am this year (a change from the traditional 6:15 am). I knew that I needed a long warm-up of at least 3 miles before the race, which meant that I wanted to be on the first bus to the start line. That first bus left at 4:30 am from Miller Hill Mall, which meant a 3 am wake-up for me to ensure I had adequate time to take meds, eat, stretch, and drive the 5 minutes from my hotel to the mall. Fortunately, this wasn't too big an ask since I usually get up at about 4:15 am for track workouts at home, and 3 am Duluth time was 4 am DC time. (the hotel blackout curtains were a big help, though).
I left my hotel at 4:20 am, and got to Miller Hill Mall and the buses right on schedule. Only to hit hiccup #1. Like always, I had packed the race-provided plastic bag with everything I wanted to carry to the start line, including stuff like a small cell phone, arm-warmers/arm-coolers, extra snacks, a sportsbra (in case I wanted to swap from my singlet). My plan was to get to the start line, make a decision as to what I wanted for the race once I was up there, and then check my bag at the start line, like I had done every other year I had run the half-marathon.
But the morning's ugly surprise was that we were apparently required to check our bags BEFORE getting on the buses. Which resulted in me sitting on the sidewalk in the pre-dawn darkness and frantically going through my bag to pull out what I thought I would need (gels, water bottle, throwaway gloves, arm-warmers just-in-case).
It was annoying and a good lesson for me. Things do change sometimes, and no matter how many times I have run a race, I should still carefully read the runner instructions.
***
The second ugly surprise was just how disorganized the start area was when I got there, with too few porta-johns in a variety of locations, all with very long lines. Now granted, the last time I ran the half, I was in the elite field and had a separate porta-john, so maybe it's been this way the past few years. But it really stood out to me, and I heard others complain about it. I hope the race can fix this in the future.
The third ugly surprise, and the most significant, was the lack of a good place to warm up. Nowadays, I need a good 3-4 miles of running before racing anything shorter than a full marathon, including a fair amount of fast running. If I don't get that in, my dystonia stuff results in a really rough first few miles.
In years past, this has never been a problem at this race - we were allowed to run as far as we wanted down the course from the start line. But not this year. Volunteers and staff formed a human wall about 80 meters beyond the start line, limiting all runners to this area. It was really frustrating, as there was no way for me to do the warm up I needed before the race - just too many people in too small an area.
Had I known, I would have woken up even earlier to do a substantial warm up before getting on the bus. I hope they either change this in future years or warn people ahead of time that there will not be much room to warm up at the start of the half-marathon. (Yes, I've checked all the documentation, and I don't see any mention of the restricted warm-up area.)
***
I was annoyed when I lined up in the corral. Knowing that I was going to start really slow and awkwardly, I lined myself up behind the 1:45 marathon/8 minute pace group. The Garry Bjorklund half is not a very big race - about 8000 runners total - and the road is wide, so I knew that any traffic jams I might get caught up in would resolve quickly. Then I waited, and at 6 am without much fanfare the horn blew and we began shuffle jogging to the start line.
The first two miles were rough - not from dealing with race chaos per se - but just from the fact that I wasn't ready to run fast and my feet and ankles were really clumsy. I focused on working through it, relaxing, and trying to pick up the pace as much as I could when I could. After those two miles my gait felt a bit better (though not great), and I started to feel out my "red line."
To explain the "red line": I run by effort not pace; I wear a watch but never look at it when racing or doing track workouts. I know what different efforts should feel like, and tempo/half-marathon effort feels like a red line that I bump up against. At home on the track, I'll spend the first mile of a 4 mile tempo building to that red line and then spend nearly all of the tempo at that red line before ticking slightly past it on the last lap. In a half-marathon, I'll use the first mile or two to feel my way up to that red line, and then hover there until the last mile, when I try to speed up if I can (usually I'm at my limit by then).
So, as I warmed up into the race during the first miles, I searched for that red line. And I hit it, but even without looking at my watch I could tell that I wasn't running as fast as I usually did for this effort. Everything just felt off, despite the fact that it was a lovely low-to mid-50s and windless morning in Duluth. My gait felt awkward and my chest felt tight, but that was what I had to work with, so I did, and just tried to reel in person after person methodically.
***
And that was pretty much how the race went. I never felt great during the race, so I just kept grinding away. This course rolls a bit, and while in years past I used to flow down the declines, this year those were an awkward struggle. I worked on engaging my core and letting my shoulders rotate (I've been working on that with a PT) and it seemed to help some, but I still have a lot more work to do there.
Oddly enough, when we entered downtown Duluth I started to feel a lot better and was finally able to open up my stride a bit. Of course, then we hit the somewhat steep drops down into the Harbor area and I lost most of my momentum there. I was able to pick up the pace again as soon as I was on level ground, and from there I just counted down the turns to the finish, and then I was done. As I crossed the finish line, I noted the clock reading 1:35:xx and was annoyed, but it was what it was.
Splits were:
Mile 1: 7:51
Mile 2: 7:23
Mile 3: 7:05
Mile 4: 7:15
Mile 5: 7:17
Mile 6: 7:09
Mile 7: 7:14
Mile 8: 7:09
Miles 9-10: 14:26 (7:13 pace)
Mile 11: 7:19
Miles 12 to marathon mile 26 (so about 1.90 miles): 13:48
Last .21: 1:33
So...not the race I expected (I was expecting 1:31-1:32 if we had good weather, since I am much fitter than I was when I ran 1:33 in March of this year).
As for why I under-performed? There's a few candidates (or excuses, if you like). The biggest and most probable is that there apparently was some lingering smoke from Canadian forest fires on Saturday morning. It wasn't much - just enough to trigger a "moderate" warning - but it seemed like there were quite a few people who felt off with some chest tightness/breathing issues on Saturday. I also think my lack of a warm-up didn't help either. Even though I was able to get up to speed fairly quickly, I never felt fluid or locked into a rhythm.
And then there's of course the fact that this is my final race of a long season that started in early March, and I may just have stretched things out a bit too far.
Or it could have just been a bad day. Anyways, I'm done, and it was still fun to go to Duluth and cheer for friends at the marathon and hang out for a bit afterwards. And now it's time for a week long break, followed by a few weeks of relaxed "what the heck" training before starting to focus on the Chicago Marathon in July.
Other notes:
- I ended up 7th in my age group, which is a bummer. Had I been a year older, I would have won my age group. There's a lot of difference between 45 and 49, folks.
- The temperatures were perfect for the half marathon, but definitely too warm for the full marathon, especially the second half. Sucked for them.
- My return flight to DC was at 7:00 pm on Saturday night. I left Duluth around 2:30 pm, and it worked perfectly - enough time to fuel up in Duluth, fuel up again near MSP (why are there so few gas stations near MSP?) and get through security, with about 30 minutes to spare before boarding.
- As an aside, flying from the mid-west always reminds me of just how useful having TSA Pre-check is. In DC, Pre-check is not that helpful since many people have it (military and DOD civilians can simply opt into it), and so you don't save that much time. But at MSP, having Pre-Check allowed me to bypass a 25 minute security line. I've had similar experiences at DTW and MCI.
- That whole syncing my phone up to the car audio worked well enough that I may never pay for satellite radio again. The only downside is that I would get super excited every time a song came on "yay...I love this track" and then I would remember that of course I did because this was a curated playlist of my favorite tracks in a specific genre. Maybe I should add in some stuff I don't like just to keep it real.
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