Location: Travelers Rest, SC
Date: January 2, 2010
Placing: 1st Overall
Race Photos
Results: Click Here

It was a day like any other day...if you happen to be a penguin. If you are simply a human being living in South Carolina, well, let's just say I hope everyone brought in their brass monkeys. This is my second running of the New Year's Resolution Half Marathon and apparently, there a few things that I can count on: 1. It will be COLD. 2. I will see lots of friends I haven't seen in a while (this event seems to be fairly popular with many triathletes as well) and 3. The course will be long. Yes, even though it was a new course this year - and incorporated a sizeable section of the newly paved Swamp Rabbit Trail - they still managed to keep the extra .2 miles on from the old course. It's not that big a deal, I mean everyone has to do the same distance anyway. But I find myself arguing in my mind out on the course "That was a mile", "No it wasn't". And you begin to wonder, will ALL the mile markers be off or will they suddenly come back in line with reality in the last few miles? (I've had this happen before). Oh, well - I guess it's just one more distraction from the pain, uh - I mean enjoyment - of the race.

The hardest part of the event was figuring out what to wear. Initially - after stepping out of my car - I planned to simply run with a light coating of gasoline drizzled on myself so that I could simply light myself on fire. People would probably have run as fast as they could just to stay near me; maybe even carrying marshmallows to roast along the way. This was obviously a bad idea because my hands would have been too cold to strike a match. The starting air temperature was about 27 degrees but this was hardly the whole story. The wind was moving at about 100 mph and felt like 1000 tiny darts hitting you wherever you had exposed skin. My guess is that this took the wind chill factor down to -50...or somewhere around there. I'm not sure I've ever done a running race in tights, but I did today.

The 'sponsor pose'...Fleet Feet, TeamKattouf, Rudy Project and ...maybe Erin Baker's cookies if I can swing it ;-) (YUM!)

My warmup was intense - consisting of sitting in the gym of the YMCA and shooting the breeze with Nicole Ramsbey and Jeff Walthew. I had several friends ask me where my ever-present wife Janis was. They were kidding, right? I married someone much smarter than me. When I asked her if she would be joining me today, I didn't even merit a "No". Instead, I got some sort of a snicker-grunt. Just enough to let me know that I was stupid and she was smart. I remember doing some bike races in the extreme cold years ago. We would sit in our cars parked as close to the start line as possible with the heat on and the bikes leaning against the car. When the starter would hold the pistol in the air, we would jump out, jump on our bikes and go. That honestly is about what I did today; darting from the building to the start line about a minute before the proverbial gun went off.

I said the obligatory 'Good Lucks' to everyone I knew n the start line including fellow GTC Master runner Ed Hughes. I had asked Ed earlier if he would be running the half marathon or the accompanying 5k. He had told me the 5k. I thought they had different starts but I guess not. Oooops. I guess so. Ed ran about 2 miles before realizing he started with the wrong group. Sorry Ed - but that's funny ;-). What's really funny is Ed's penchant for amateur video making. Check out his recent production on youtube: T-shirt song.

The race started way up at the top of a loooong driveway to the YMCA. Which means as soon as they said "go"...down we went. Being world renowned for my downhill 'windmill-style' running, I instantly flew towards the front and just 30 yards into the race, there were 2 runners just ahead of me, and one runner opened up a sizeable gap on all of us. On my out-of-control romp down the hill, I passed the 2 ahead of me. When we finally bottomed out, the second half of mile 1 was all uphill. My coach and I planned that I would stay below 146 HR for the first 3 miles so after whipping down the hill, I found myself gradually slowing down on the way up. Just before mile marker 1, I melded into a group containing 3 other runners; Master phenoms Joe Hammond and Tim Stewart, and my Fleet Feet teammate Matt Pryor. We were in 4-7th place and we ran together for just about the first 3 miles. I would pull away a little on the down sections and they would catch back up on the up sections as I tried to keep my HR in the prescribed zone.

BAM! Mile 3. Finally. From miles 3-10 I was allowed to take the HR up to 150; a small but significant difference. I could continue to run at the same speed on the flats and downs but would no longer have to back down on the ups as much. I slowly seperated myself from my companions and noticed ahead that the 2nd and 3rd palce runners had caught and were dropping the initial leader. I stifled my desire to really chase them down and at mile 5, I too caught and left the initial leader which moved me into 3rd.

We swung into the back gate at Furman. With all the long, gradual ups and downs on the course, it was hard to tell which miles were more up and which were down but so far I had mustered the following splits: 6:04, 6:12, 6:01, 6:04, 5:47, 6:04. I kept smiling to myself at the thought of the fun that I might have eventually. You see, the two lead runners NEVER looked back. I don't blame them - I never look back either (except maybe in the finishing stretch). Halfway through mile 7, one of the 2 runners dropped a bit; the first sign that he was getting tired. I threw down a 5:47 mile and was no more than 30 yards behind them when one of them finally looked back at a turn. I think I surprised them especially since they passed me going pretty slow up the first hill of the race.

They seemingly picked up their pace but I stayed about 20 yards behind them - one runner slowly dropping his buddy. Somewhere around mile 8, I caught 2nd place. Moments later, the course came out into the open and turned back on itself. Somewhere around mile 6 I had wondered if I had over-dressed. The answer smacked me right in the face as we ran up arguably the toughest hill because of the open headwind. I ran behind him and let him set tempo to the top. Once over, I came around him with plenty of HR. He stayed with me for another 30 seconds and then it was just me...and one runner who had opened up a decent gap when he originally saw me coming 2 miles earlier. But what he didn't know as we turned onto the Swamp Rabbit Trail - and more headwind - was that at mile 10 I was allowed to take the HR up as high as I wanted.

In my estimates, the leader had 15-20 seconds on my at mile 10. Once again, he had stopped looking back. His mistake. When he turned and looked back at mile 11, I believe he was expecting to see his friend a ways back. Instead, he saw me less than 10 seconds behind him. I felt great running up the slow incline into Travelers Rest. He kept looking over his shoulder as I approached. Finally, when I was no more than 20 feet behind him he abruptly did a u-turn and headed back down the trail. Both the lead cyclist and I were baffled. I was honestly looking forward to a true 'race to the finish'. All I could assume at the time was that he turned back for his friend. What I would be left to assume later based on the results was that he was racing as a bandit just to pace his friend. Tsk, Tsk. I'll let each of you pass your own judgement but I wasn't going to leave it out since it was vital to the story.

I turned out of the headwind and onto the final downhill mile. With a comfortable cushion, I had little to push me this last mile which could have been a sub-5:40 considering the terrain. My Garmin put my actual 13.1-mile finish at 1:18:55 (a 6:01 pace) while the race finish clock - another .2 miles up the road - had me at 1:20:09. Not ultra fast no matter how you look at it, but plenty fast for the conditions.

The runner I cought at mile 11.5 'disappeared' while his buddy hung on for 2nd place. My Fleet Feet teammate Matt Pryor took 3rd overall. Joe Hammond (4th) and Tim Stewart (6th) showed once again that the Greenville area has some of the most talented Masters runners in the Southeast.

I call this one..."Old Farts". I can say that. If you say it, you'd better be able to run REAL fast.

Race Notes:
* As I mentioned - too many friends to recognize them all but I will call out my friend Rob Dempsey who emceed the start and the awards and also ran in the event. Also, a shout out to Katie Malone and Brad Fraedrich who ran the race after driving straight back from Wisconsin the day before. Dang.
* I can't help it. I have to point out that I'm 45 now and the 2nd place was 21. * Ed, if you're reading this, Joe, Tim and I decided it might be time for an 'intervention'...

Next Up: The Greenville News Downtown 5k and then the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon...