TC10, Take 2



Paul, me, Mary, Tom (Tom O' photo)

 Back to yesterday's TCM/TC10. I've chatted with a few people today and have a few more success stories. Eric Woodford's 3:09:31 was a PR by over a minute. Congrats, Eric!! You now have that elusive sub-3:10 under your belt. What next?? Trevor's 3:21:25 was his second fastest marathon ever. Super run!! Maureen Hogan is going to Boston, and Kristin Zhao is "going to try to go" to Boston after qualifying yesterday. I hope she/they join the ever-growing band of Boston-bound from Roch.

So ... after the race, there is a veritable sea of runners in the finish area ...

collecting their heat blankets, shirts,

 drop bags, bananas, water, chicken broth and whatever else they had for post-race food.

After I collected my stuff I went to my car (literally steps from the finish line in my secret parking area where I park for free every year : ) to get some warm clothes. Then it was back to the meeting area where I met up with Paul, Tom and Mary.

Looks like Paul doesn't like that Greek yogurt!! Actually, he did like it. I just captured his face at a most inopportune moment. : ) Sorry Paul. The boys (Melby, Tom O' and Woo) and I went off to their car so they could change ... right in the middle of the parking lot!! O'Leary's makeshift changing room was the space between the two car doors. Very private indeed.

Melby made do with his jacket zipped up around his "privates". It seemed to work reasonably well for him. What a hoot. : )

The first order of business, after the change, was a cold one. They certainly came prepared.

Shortly thereafter, John Shonyo wandered by for a cookie.

Then the Three Amigos and I ...

made our way up toward the St. Paul Cathedral and the huge American flag to stand at the 26-mile mark to watch and cheer for our friends.

The winner had a pretty huge margin of victory.

We were stationed right by the ING tent and they had all sorts of freebies ...

of which we took full advantage.

Shortly after that, the first female finisher flew by.

Then it was our hero, Andy Hemenway flying by along with the others in the sub-3 club. (Andy is on the left.) This was a huge PR for him. 16 or 17 minutes I think. Super race!!

Next, Trevor.

Maureen Hogan wandered by after her super marathon!! I had a big hug for her. : )

On the way back to our vehicles, we saw Will, Eric and Maddie Woodford sitting on the bridge. Eric was giving those 3:09 legs a well-deserved break!!

We decided on Applebee's in West St. Paul for a late lunch.

I'm getting back on the healthy eating bandwagon (I ate half a cookie today and then felt terribly guilty and threw the other half in the garbage disposal ... and then got on the Stairmaster for an hour) so I ate one of the low-cal options. Some kind of Oriental Chicken Salad.

That brought an end to my 2010 TC10 experience. All in all, it was fun. Disappointing on the running front, but fun. I am VERY happy for everyone else's successes!! And that made it a good weekend indeed.

At the expo, USATF had some 2009 Runners' Yearbooks. They were free since they were last year's model, and I thought I'd take a look at the page listing the top 45-49 year old women runners in Minnesota last year. Shocker ... my name was in there. #9 on the list of top 10. That made me happy.

Four of us from our River Runners masters female race team made the list (Wanda, Lisa, Cindy and myself). I think that's pretty impressive.

Jeff P. and Trevor are doing a 50K ultra on October 30. They're working on Andy as well. It's called Surf the Murph. There's a 25K and 50-miler as well. Good luck with that, guys. : )

Lots more photos on the Team R.E.D. site. Here's a link to Tom Woo's TCM photos.


Erin, me (BAD hair), Tom O', Paul

 The numbers are growing for the breakfast run at my house on Saturday. You're all welcome to attend! If you're thinking of coming, drop me an email so I make enough food. But if you don't RSVP, come on over anyway. 2026 Kal Lane SW, Rochester. 7:30 am run followed by breakfast. I'll have routes of varying distances.  You're welcome to walk or run or skip exercise all together. : ) Whatever trips your trigger. Friends and family welcome.

Morning workout: hamstring exercises and an hour in the pool. Did the same thing Saturday. Then like I said ... an hour on the Stairmaster. Tomorrow I hope to finally get in that bike ride. There's just stuff I had to get done around the house.

At noon, I dropped off the Cookies of the Month to some of the recipients.


Jim Martinson, Dan Edwards, KC Reed, Don Gabrielson

  Jim Martinson just got back from a 3 week vacation in China. Their daughter is living over there. He's also a cookie thief!!

I made another batch of cookies this afternoon, for various reasons this week. I need to update my 2010 cookie count by 32 + 56 + 33 + 33 = 154.

Very busy week this week, including a Rochester Half Marathon wrap-up meeting this evening. I'll continue with the rest of my week in tomorrow's post.

Sweet dreams.

Relative vs. Absolute

I decided to run TC10 today. I finished. I achieved my goals. Those were:

1. Finish
2. Finish, and not be the last one in
3. Finish without having to walk
4. Finish while they still had size S finisher's shirts
5. Finish in under 1:30 (9 minute pace)

Those are the "relative" successes for the day. The "absolute" part is that being competitive like I am, I am ashamed of my time, injured or not. Before my injury, I wanted to PR (sub-1:09:45) and run with Paul Melby. So having to run conservatively to not aggravate my injury, and to be passed by so many people, and to run much slower than I'd wanted, is tough. But I'll get over it. It was a very fun weekend, though, and I'll recap it now ...

I started out Saturday arriving at the expo in the early afternoon. I ran into Dave, Jane, Gina, Ron and Adam on the sidewalk outside the Excel Center. (Congrats Adam on running your first marathon ... and with your dad no less. Super.)

Then it was inside to pick up my packet and wander the aisles looking at all the "stuff" on display and given away.

Inside the expo, I saw Andy (who ran a 2:58 PR today!) and Erin ...

and Dick Daymont ...

and Pat Brown ...

and Steve DeBoer.

I picked up just a couple little things ... some biking socks and another magnet for my car.

And a few stickers to give away to friends.

After leaving the expo, I went out to Gear West to browse. Didn't buy anything.

My friend Margo had mentioned that there was a new Trader Joe's in Minnetonka, and it was only .7 miles from the hotel we were staying at, so I bopped in there for a few staples. (2 bags full, actually!) I just love that store and can't wait until ours opens in Rochester.

Then I met up with Anita, Linda, Val and Shannon at the hotel before dinner at Nonna Rosa's with some more of the River Runners. We had a delicious meal and lots of fun chatter. : )

Molly and her husband

Val, Jodi, Buddy, Paul, Rick, Jacki, Wanda (3:12 marathon today)

Wanda, Anita, Shannon, Linda, Val, Jodi

They had the biggest pepper grinder I've ever seen in my life! I guess that saves him from having to lean over the table to grind pepper ...

I had penne pasta with tomato sauce and chicken.

And of course there were cookies for dessert.

We hit the hay pretty early. I had the rollaway bed which was NOT comfortable I must say. The box spring was shot and the middle sagged terribly so I slept on a V-shaped bed. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much.

Bright and early I was off to the dome to meet the others at section 232.

Renee K.

 

Ron, Gina, Dave, Jane, John



Ed, Mary, Tom, Paul



Paul and Tom O'





Paul and Tod



P.K.

 It wasn't long before it was time to head outside to warm up, plastic bags and all.

I spied a few River Runner teammates.

Rick

 

Paul and Cindy

The women's 10-mile championship race was the first race of the morning. Man, those are some fit looking women.

Then we were off!! I knew I'd be running (and/or walking) super slow, so I carried my camera.

I saw teammate Denise in the first mile. She recently completed Ironman Wisconsin, her first. Good job, Denise!

I ran the first couple of miles with River Runner teammate Jake Bauerly.

I knew I had to run very conservatively today so as to not aggravate my hamstring further. And that's what I did. But it wasn't easy. By nature I'm competitive, both with myself and in a race situation. I sooo wanted to be a racer today, but that wasn't to be. As I passed through the mile markers, especially the first few, I had such vivid memories of last year and how well that race had gone for me. Oh to be injury free.

So the miles passed by ...

with splits of 9:04 8:39 8:45 8:33 8:55 9:01 8;50 8:26 8:25 for the first 9. I felt like I'd kept everything in control and still had plenty in the tank, so I went a bit faster for the last mile (which also has a significant downhill) and pulled out a 7:44. It felt great to pass people I must say.

The lowdown:

Finish time  1:27:26

Age group 64/346

Females  871/4311

Overall  2226/7017

: (    There's always next year ...

There were lots of success stories today. Andy Hemenway ran his first sub-3 and a PR of 2:58. Tom Woo, Tom O' and Paul all ran extremely well. The website is too busy to give results right now, but Paul M ran a 1:08 and Woo and O'Leary I think ran 1:03s, with Woo coming in 4 seconds ahead of O'Leary. Congrats to Kristin Zhao and Millie Suk for BQs at their first marathons and Maureen Hogan and Angie Haugen and Sara Ryan for also achieving BQs today. And Shaun Palmer ran a PR and BQ. And I know I'm forgetting lots of other people ... Sorry. It was a PERFECT day for a distance race. Wow. Cool, sunny, not windy. Spectacular.

I'll save the post-race stuff for tomorrow's post. I want to ice and stretch some more and then get to bed as I'm behind on my sleep.

Good night.

"Finishing is Winning'

Before I say anything else, congratulations to Familie Schmitt on the arrival of their newest member late this morning ... a little girl!!

This afternoon I needed to get my replacement vacuum cleaner belt. My vacuum is a 25-year old Hoover and about the only place I can find belts for it is the vacuum shop on 1st Ave SW just north of 6th St SW, 2 miles from my house. (BTW: They had a $1600 vacuum in there!) I'd decided I wasn't going to do a marathon bike ride today (Monday instead) as I just had to get some stuff done around the house. I wanted to do a "test run" of my running abilities before Sunday as I still haven't decided whether I'll be running TC10 or cheering on the curb on Summit Ave. So ... after I got the vacuum belt I decided to keep running. And running. The first mile I was pretty stiff and sore, but the farther I went the looser I felt and the more I felt like I was "running" and not "jogging", not just dragging my left leg along. And I had more lift in my leg. I really am still plodding along at a jogging pace but it felt good to at least feel like I was running. So at 8.00 miles, at the History Center, I decided to call it good enough walk it home. Mostly. I couldn't help but run just a little. And I stopped at a garage sale.  Here are my splits: 9:40 8:59 8:45 9:02 8:56 9;12 9:01 8:45.

Apparently none the worse for wear, I did it! : )

I was bopping around on some blogs today and found one called "Finishing is Winning" with this following ... "The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start". So there you go ...

Oh. I did get the vacuum all fixed up.

And it even works!!

I still haven't decided for sure about Sunday, but I at least know I can get myself from the dome to the capital. Or today I could anyway! So ... check back in on Sunday to see what transpires. Today's morning workout: hamstring curls and an hour swim at the Y.

More TCM/TC10 info: Steve DeBoer, runner and Mayo Clinic dietician, is doing a talk at the expo at 1:00. The Rochester runner meeting spot at the dome is section 232. Has been since my first TCM in 1998. Be there. : ) There must be close to 20 River Runners meeting for dinner on Saturday evening. I can't wait!! I made lots of cookies. Some with chocolate ...

and for Rick and Paul F (and Paul M) whose favorite is Oatmeal Raisin, a batch of those as well.

I'm sure lots of you read about my buddy Ross Hamernik who's a member of the Charter Club ... he's run all the Twin Cities Marathons up until this year. He had a hip replaced a few weeks ago, so his streak has ended. : ( But I'm sure he's handling it well with his typical good humor. : ) And sarcasm. : ) I should bring him some cookies one of these days ...

So ... back to this garage sale. I saw this hat stand/mirror/table thing made from an old door and beveled glass. That was SOLD. $45. I was so disappointed. So as I was leaving I told the 4 or 5 gals that I'd have given them $50 for it and they said to give them my number in case the other party didn't show up. And a couple of them made a comment something like "We were just admiring your lean physique ... You look like a runner." Just a few words, but boy did that make my day. I told them that yes, I was a runner, but an injured one and that I didn't feel lean these days. And the conversation went on a little bit further from there. It just made me think about the old saying "reach out and touch ..." as I was walking home. I've been feeling down, and a perfect stranger(s) reached out with her words and turned my day around. And an email I received earlier in the day had the same effect. So I challenge you today, bleaders, to reach out and touch ... say a kind word, open a door for someone, give someone a hug, say "I love you". You too just might make someone's day, turn someone's day around if even for a few short hours. It'll be worth it. I guarantee.

I was a tad domestic today and (self-) cleaned the oven and cleaned all the shelves in the fridge. I love it when the fridge is sparkling clean and organized.

As long as we're talking food, here was supper ...

along with an ear of corn and a slab o'bread.

Last night someone asked me what happened to the toenail that I lost last week. Well, it's now residing on the dashboard of a friend's vehicle. : ) Ha!!

It's late and I've got a busy weekend coming. G'night.