Historical Mojo?

Frank Shorter, 1972

Can mojo be passed on in a historical context? There are a few of us here in Gainesville that are hoping so. Previous members of the Florida Track Club have included some pretty talented runners, and some of us want in on that action. Maybe it's in the water.

Bear with me, this is a bit convoluted. I was having a conversation last Saturday with OB, a fellow Florida Track Club member, after the 5K the Club held as part of the Five Points of Life Marathon and Half-marathon race weekend. We had been talking about the recent speakers at the monthly FTC meetings AND we were talking about the Gate River Run 15K race coming up in Jacksonville - the FTC has had a sizable contingent travel to this race in previous years, and OB and I are both going. The last two speakers at our meetings were early members of the FTC. Coach Roy Benson was our last speaker. Naturally, Frank Shorter's name came up.

From 1969-1979, Roy Benson was first the Cross Country and then the Track Coach at UF, and served as President of the newly formed Florida Track Club. At this point in running history, local running clubs served as training grounds for post-collegiate amateur runners. Coach Benson was running the FTC when Frank Shorter, Jack Bachelor, Jeff Galloway, and Ron Jourdan were training with the club and qualified for the 1972 USA Olympic Team. I'm hoping many of you know Frank, but I'd only be willing to bet money that one of my regular readers recognizes Frank's name. He is the winner of the 1972 Olympic Gold Medal in marathon and the 1976 Silver Medal. He is the last American man to win Gold in the marathon. He is also the last person to see Steve Prefontaine before he died - not a fact Frank likes to remember. Anyway, OB mentioned that he wanted to get a FTC singlet to wear for the 15K. The movie "Without Limits" which was about Pre, had been on TV and OB had noticed that in one of the scenes, Frank was racing in his FTC singlet. OB thought it would be cool to represent the Club like Frank did, and maybe get a little of Frank's mojo. Now OB is pretty fast and regularly places in the top three in his age group; he has the potential to do really well at the 15K so if dressing like Frank helps him feel faster, I say go for it. Plus it's always nice to represent - especially at an out-of-town race.

Steve Prefontaine leads his friend Frank Shorter.
It was Pre's final race, on May 19, 1975, at Hayward Field.

No, I won't be wearing a FTC singlet. There are some sizing issues with the ladies' singlets. I really just need to have Running Banana make me one.

Incidentally, my Saturday long runs almost always include a stretch of road that was one of Frank's favorite training routes. I didn't know that when I started running it - it just happens to be one of the hilliest sections in town.

Some quotes from Frank Shorter that I like:

• Because running fast is more fun than running slow.

• Hills are speedwork in disguise.

• You don't run 26 miles at five minutes a mile on good looks and a secret recipe.

A New PR

Brian and I recently went on a trip to Austin. The primary reason for this trip was so that Brian could attend a symposium that the UT Biomedical Engineering Department was hosting to honor Brian's Ph.D. thesis adviser, A.J. Welch. A.J. had finally decided to retire and because he was such a pioneer in the field of optics in medicine and largely responsible for the presence of a Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Texas, the Department wanted to honor him.

Now Brian hasn't been to Austin in quite a while so we decided that we would make a longer trip than attending the symposium required. That way we'd have a chance to visit with people and do some fun things. I had also decided that I was going to purchase a new bike while we were in town so I wanted to make sure we were there long enough to make that happen. We were in town from Thursday to the following Tuesday and it was a very good trip. We stayed with Joey, Rachel, and Jordan as usual, and as usual they were awesome hosts. Unfortunately, Rachel wasn't feeling good during our visit, but she still managed to do some fun things with us.

The timing of the trip happened to coincide with the 3M half-marathon so I decided to run it. 3M was my first ever half-marathon back in 2003, and it is an excellent race, but I haven't run it in quite a while . The course is primarily downhill, runs right through the middle of Austin, and has lots of spectators. My time from that race was my half-marathon PR at 2:08:03.80. That's right - my best half-marathon time was my first half-marathon. Now in all fairness to me, before this year I'd only run 3 half-marathons and two were done with injuries/health issues so I had no time expectations. This year was going to be different. I decided after the New York Marathon that I shouldn't have any problem setting a PR in a half-marathon and set about to make that happen. I decided to train to finish the half in 1:59. I know I've got a sub 2 hour half in me and I figured that even if I didn't get there this year, it certainly didn't hurt my running to train that way.

Some time around Christmas, I started getting nervous about the race. It was a little over a month away at that point, and my running had been feeling sluggish. I was doing all my workouts at the right paces, but my legs were not loving the pounding - probably too much running on the concrete, and maybe some delayed fatigue from New York. I decided to ask Joey if he would be willing to pace me for at least part of the race. Joey is faster than me, but he wasn't training to run this race so I thought he might not mind running slower than he is capable. He said he would be happy to run it with me, but had considered doing the relay so he would let me know. I was really relieved when he told me that he was going to run the entire race with me. Wohoo! Not only was I going to set a new PR but I was going to get to run a race with my best friend. I was still nervous, but now I was really excited, too.

I had discussed what pace to run both with my coach, Brandon, and with Joey, and had decided based on the humidity and how I had felt during my last few long runs, that breaking two hours was going to be extremely difficult. I had been having breathing problems and hadn't yet figured out that I was getting hit with high pine pollen AND high mold. It was 86% humidity at the start of the race, and I knew breaking 2 hours wasn't going to happen. I told Joey that I wanted to start out at a 9:30 min mile pace and just see how things progressed.

We were a little bit disorganized getting to the race - we had a hard time finding the clothing drop and the bathrooms. I decided to forgo the bathroom because I didn't want to miss the start. I did not realize how much this race had grown since I ran it last. It took me and Joey 6 minutes to cross the start so I would've had plenty of time to pee. Oh well! I could always stop on the course if I really needed to.

The morning was chilly, but not unbearably so, and once we got underway we warmed up nicely. The humidity was unpleasant because it made everything feel clammy. The first mile was a little slow, but then we got to a 9:30 min mile and stayed right around there for the next 8 miles. I was having some breathing difficulties which meant I wasn't a very talkative running companion, but Joey was right there with me the whole way. Occasionally, he would dash away to say hi to someone he knew, but he always came back, and it made me smile to see him having a good time. After all, if you aren't running a race with a specific time goal then you should be having fun. Somewhere around the halfway point, I saw Brandon. He said he was going to be out cheering, since he had several athletes running, but he wasn't sure where along the course he would be. He gave me a Joey a big cheer, and I smiled and waved.

Humidity and breathing issues aside, I felt really good during the race , and am really pleased with the outcome. Around mile 10, Joey really started to push the pace. Somewhere along the way, he had gotten it in his head that we needed to break 2:05 - for all I know, I could have mentioned it at some point, who knows. Plus I think he knew I had more in the tank. He kept pushing the pace and encouraging me. He was definitely in full-blown coaching mode. There were a couple of times when he was running just ahead of me and encouraging me to pick up the pace, and I thought "If I could catch you, I would beat you." Of course I wouldn't really, and I know that he would only push me until I said I couldn't do anymore. I was breathing pretty hard, and getting darn close to puking when we crossed the finish line in 2:03:47. Wohoo! I have to give Joey a lot of credit for that time. I would have definitely set a PR if I was running by myself, but there is no way I would have pushed the last 3 miles as hard as I did on my own considering how I was feeling. Thanks Joey! You are a truly awesome friend!

Here are our splits from the race: 9:51, 9:33, 9:37, 9:32, 9:29, 9:29, 9:33, 9:32, 9:28, 9:26, 9:11, 9:05, 9:08, 0:52 Total time 2:03:47

One other thing - I've had three major PRs since I started working with my coach back in July. Thanks, Brandon!

The View from Tuesday

This was part of my view from my lounge chair on the pool deck. It was a beautiful day - 65, sunny, and super low humidity. Normally, I wouldn't be inclined to write just about the weather, but our weather here in Florida has been all over the place this winter. Sunday we had to turn on the AC and by Monday evening we had the heat running. Florida weather is usually very regular and consistent - especially this time of year, which is supposed to be fire season. At any rate, it was lovely to finally have such beautiful weather on the same day that I was able to swim outside. It's been well over a month since that's happened. Tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same and I'm hoping to get in both a bike ride AND a swim before my yoga class - although maybe that's being greedy.

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Today is Valentine's Day, perhaps one of my least favorite holidays. What do I have against this day, you might wonder? Nothing big, I just feel like lovers, spouses, life-partners, and any other term you might come up with for couples, shouldn't need a holiday to make a special effort to do nice things for each other or buy each other gifts. Couples should always make that effort, and part of me feels like a holiday devoted to love gives people an excuse to be a little lazy in their relationship at other times. It also makes single people feel bad about themselves for not having a date. Okay, the fact that everyone in Gainesville was trying to get home early today and the 5 o'clock rush hour was the worst I have ever seen it, making my evening run less than enjoyable, might be making me a little cynical, but I'm still not a fan of the holiday - other than as an excuse to eat chocolate, of course. Rant over.

Now there is a reason for celebrating on February 14th, but it is much more personal and has nothing to do with couples. Today happens to be my sister Sarah's birthday, and I am a big fan of celebrating birthdays. Sarah is my only sister and we are only 15 months apart so we are very close, even if we didn't always get along growing up. It's funny watching her two older girls interact - it's like going back in time 30 years. My sister has 4 young children and is an extremely busy stay at home mom. If anyone deserves a special day just for herself, she does. At any rate, Happy Birthday Sis! I hope it was a good one.

Barbie Girl

This morning while Brian and I were watching SpongeBob, I saw a commercial that made me sit up and take note. Normally, Brian and I tune out the commercials during SpongeBob because they are geared toward kids. This particular commercial was for Beach Barbie and her friends. I swear I had heard my name. I rewound the DVR - I love the DVR - and sure enough, there is a Barbie with my name - spelled the same, and she's a brunette. Brian and I both lost it, and started laughing hysterically. Brian said he is getting me one as a present. Now to be honest, I'm a little disturbed by the notion that there is a Barbie out there with my name on it. I don't know why since I played with Barbies as a child and my nieces play with Barbies. Of course, the next step was a Google search. It turns out that Barbie Teresa was introduced in 1988 as a friend to Barbie. Here is a slideshow with some of the various incarnations of Barbie Teresa. For those of you out there that think it might be fun to start referring to me as Barbie Teresa - don't even go there!

Sweet!

This post is going to be short. I'm having the worst case of allergies since I got hit with cedar fever my second winter in Austin. Basically, the weather has conspired to hit me with both a high mold count AND pine pollen at the same time. I can handle one or the other, but both together is killing me. I'm totally grouchy and completely pissed off because I have all this energy and my body wants to train except I can't breathe so when I start to exert myself, I feel like I'm going to pass out - I've been managing some workouts, but not what I want. It's also really hard for me to focus and spending time on the computer makes my head hurt. Okay, enough whining and on to the real post.

I bought a new bike when I was in Austin - a tri bike. I'll do a more detailed post about the purchase experience, and the bike when I start riding it. It is a Kuota K-factor and it is a sweet ride. The bike was delivered on Monday and I managed to get it mostly assembled and up on the trainer so I could make some adjustments. I still need to put on the seat and pedals so the picture I included is one I took of the bike when I was at Joey and Rachel's. It is so light and handles really well. I can't wait to start riding it. In case you are wondering, yes, I will still be riding my road bike - I love my road bike. The tri bike will be a much better bike for races - especially here in Florida. So now I have two really awesome bikes to train on. Wohoo!

Seriously?

Two Saturdays ago - that was January 19 - I ran the Newnan's Lake 15K. This is a local Gainesville race put on by the Florida Track Club. As a member of the club, I try to be involved in the events if I can - either by racing or volunteering. Since I was in training for the 3M half-marathon in Austin the following weekend, I decided to run. I wasn't planning on racing it, but using it more as a supported long run. I've missed this race the past two years because I have been in Austin so I was also looking forward to running a new race.

The weather forecast for the race was not good and, sure enough, it was raining when I woke up. Raining, 51 degrees, and 96% humidity - not the greatest conditions for a race. I needed to do a long run that day anyway or I might have gone back to bed. I ate my usual morning breakfast, packed a change of clothes, put on some layers including my fleece hat with "Suck it up!" embroidered on it - a gift from Joey a few years back - and headed out.

The rain was slacking off and the wind was picking up by the time the race started. It really didn't matter, it was so humid everything was wet. There was a surprisingly good turn out, and everyone was in good spirits despite the weather. I opted to go without the ipod - it's only 9.3 miles, it's rainy, there's people to run with, and it's an open course so I didn't see the need for music. I ended up running with Susan, who is what I refer to as a race friend - one of those people you see at races, and who runs about the same pace as you. We first met back in August. We have a lot in common so we chatted most of the race. I wasn't pushing my pace and she was recovering from running the Disney marathon the week before so we were happy going along at a comfortable steady pace. I ended up finishing in 1:30.18 which was right on target with what I had discussed with my coach. All things considered, I was pleased and felt ready for the half-marathon.

Since it's a Track Club event, I planned on staying for the awards. Several people I know are usually in the top 3 of their age group, and I like to be supportive. I hung out at the finisher's chute for a bit, cheering people on, and chatting with some friends, but as I cooled down and the wind continued to pick up, I headed to the car to change into dry clothes, and deal with yet another case of bleeding jogbra chafe - ooowwww!!! Turns out it was good thing I hung around for the awards, since I ended up winning my age group. Too funny!! I was truly surprised and I felt kind of bad, since I hadn't actually pushed myself or tried to win. Oh well! I'm not going to complain - I got a cute bag, and a bit of an ego boost. Overall, it was a good race.