Kentucky Derby Mini Marathon Race Report

This was it, my "A" race for the first part of the year.  The hard training, the losing weight, the taper tensions all added up to this race, my goal to go under 1:18:00 for the 13.1 miles.

I rode my bike Friday and had a great time, didn't try too hard and felt great.  On Friday evening I headed down to Louisville, there's no race morning packet pick-up, so the day before race trip was necessary.  Instead of facing the drive home again and the 4am wake-up to drive back down to Louisville, I stayed at a hotel out of town near the Cyclocross track at Eva Bandman park.

Louisville looked pretty good in the spring evening sunset

I ate pasta with my family before leaving Columbus, later in the evening I had a baked egg

Protein & Carbs

from the Skratch Labs Feedzone Portables book as well as a U-Go bar, this "last supper" was washed down with some Hare Trigger beer and a large glass of Beetroot juice - not exactly an inspiring culinary experience but quality fuel for the task ahead of me.

Waking up at 6am was far better than the 4am alternative even if the price paid was not sleeping in my own bed and a hotel air conditioning unit which sounded like a small aircraft trying to take off in my room!

A short drive had me parked about a mile from the start location, it was a cool morning, but not cold.  I started a short warm up run, after about half a mile I picked up the pace to what felt like a comfortable race effort.  Looking at my GPS, I was at 5:45 min/mile - faster than my target pace, and my legs felt good.  Sometimes in these brief warm up efforts, you just get the feeling that it's going to be a good day - today was one of those days.

After 2.5 miles of warm up I arrived at the start.  I hadn't appreciated how big this race was going to be.  With the mini-marathon and full marathon combined, there were over 16,000 participants - that's a lot of people trying to use a porta-potty within 30 mins of the start!

I was seeded in coral A based on my projected finish time - this was great - only the second time in my life I've been brave enough to stand right at the front of a big race & watch as the elite athletes (who don't get a coral) finished their warm ups and lined up just ahead of us.  My Quaff ON! Racing team mate, Danny Fisher was running the full marathon and as a previous champion was seeded #6.  It was great to see a friendly face and shake hands before the start, even though I knew I wouldn't see him again until he finished his race!

There were two things I noticed about my peers in the race - this is a group of people who've all trained and are strong enough to run a half marathon at around 6 min/mile pace, so they're all experienced runners
First - within the first 5 miles, 2 people stopped to tie shoe laces, one of them ran past me again, then stopped again to tie the other shoe lace!
Second - the number of people not running the shortest course.  USATF certifies the course over the shortest distance, the roads are closed which means you run corner to corner.  I passed people running the left hand gutter like it was a training run expecting oncoming traffic.
So my takeaways from this, even for experienced runners is (1) always double tie your shoes, really, it takes no additional effort, just do it! (2) run the shortest course - turn off the training mentality and look for the line corner to corner.
Sounds basic, it is basic, but there are plenty of people running semi-elite times that aren't paying attention to these basics.

My race quickly settled into a rhythm with my pace at or just below my target of 5:58 min/mile.  It quickly got thinned out and by 10k there were really only 3 or 4 people around me. The course goes through the Churchhill Downs race course, as we dipped back under the tunnel to start the dead straight 4 miles to the finish, Paul Althoff, caught up with me and we exchanged a few panted words about our objectives - both wanting to break 78 mins - we came through 10 miles in 59:33, I knew it would be a close call to hit my goal time - we remained in sight of each other to the finish briefly exchanging positions as one started to fade, or the other felt strong it was good motivation to stay on pace and definitely helped me when the going got tough.  We were running into a head wind which at first was hardly noticeable but the closer we got to the down town, the taller the buildings got and channeled the wind directly at us.  The final mile of this was truly miserable, culminating in running under the long bridge of the conference center which was like a full-on wind tunnel.  I kept telling myself that once we turned out of the wind onto Main Street for the final 0.6 miles, I'd find some speed but when we finally made the turn, there was nothing left to accelerate, just maintaining pace was taking my full effort.  Finally I made the last turn to the down hill finish and found something to pick up the pace.  I could see the clock already past 1:17:00, with a weak surge I crossed the line with an official race time of 1:17:45.

Finishers medal 1:17:45 - new PR!

I had beaten my goal time, I came 23rd overall (out of 11,800 starters!) and won my age group.  A result I'm really proud of - the preparation in training paid off.

After a short cool down run back to the car, I was able to cheer on Danny Fisher who finished 4th overall in the marathon with a PR time of 2:30:18 - he'd just run two half marathons back to back faster than my personal best - a humbling thought!  Also running the full marathon (his second in 7 days) was team mate Joe Bell, who come in at 2:58 - sub 3 hour marathons are becoming the norm for Joe who's endurance and persistence are inspiring.

Tim Proctor, Danny Fisher, Joe Bell
Quaff ON!

Link to my Strava activity for this race

A very Good Friday

For the second year in a row, I've been on vacation Good Friday whilst the kids have to go to school as a make up for snow days over the winter.  I planned to take advantage of this some time ago with a buddy of mine, we'd ride about 50 miles to Bloomington and meet our wives for a lunch date whilst the kids were in school - this year the Easter weekend coincided with the Kentucky Derby Half Marathon which is the focus of my training in an attempt to set a new PR.
To avoid tired legs on Saturday, the ride to Bloomington was much more leisurely than normal.  The slower pace, actually trying not to try hard, combined with a beautiful spring morning and great conversation found me reconnecting with the child-like joy of riding my bike to get somewhere, just for fun.  In a life with continuous pressures on time, I end up feeling that every moment I get to ride or run has to contribute to the training objectives.  I enjoy working hard and feeling my body responding to the training but the focus & intensity can get in the way of the magical pleasure of being outside, enjoying the world moving by at a pace dictated solely by personal propulsion.  I realize that I need to do more of this to prevent things getting stale, making space for just fun as opposed to training activities will be a priority in my plans for the rest of the year.

Lake Lemon - South Shore Drive on Good Friday

Taper Tension

Like many people at this time of year, I'm in a taper week ahead of a big race.  For me it's the Kentucky Derby Festival Half Marathon.
Some people (like Danny Fisher) hardly taper, but normally these are seasoned runners with high mileage weeks being the norm in their life.  My experience leads me to taper quite a lot, this week I'll run about 50% of a normal week.  That sounds great "just run a lot less than you usually do" but actually it's hard.
In training, I feel in control - I set objectives which I either meet or fail to meet, this guides me and gives me feedback on how my body is adapting.  This close to the race, there's no more adapting going to happen - the "money is in the bank" and this loss of control, no more chance to influence the outcome, is what plays on my mind.

Beet, Carrot & Apple... Quaff ON!

Doing less work, means watching the diet more closely to avoid last minute weight gain, but it also means eating the right foods to ensure muscles and metabolism are recovered & fully charged for the hard race effort ahead.  I'm a big believer in raw vegetables and this week I'm drinking a lot of beetroot, carrot & apple juice made fresh with a juicer.  Beetroot has a scientifically proven benefit for endurance sport performance, helping the body transport oxygen to the muscles more efficiently.  The rest of the diet needs to ensure enough protein and vitamins to help recover strength as my body rests as well as the carbohydrates needed to charge up the muscles ready for work.

Taper doesn't mean no work, it's important to keep some intensity so I went to Track Tuesday and completed a short, but fast pre-race workout just as we did before the Hoosier Half a couple of weeks ago.  I've got a short run planned today where I'll hit target race pace for 1/2 - 3/4 mile just to remember what it feels like.
Normally Friday would be a complete rest day, but it's the Good Friday holiday here and the one day in the year when I don't have to go to work but the kids have to go to school!  I'm making the most of this and riding with a friend to Bloomington where we'll meet our wives for brunch at Farm, before driving home again.  An easy 50 mile spin on the bike will loosen up my legs without adding significant fatigue and I'll recover with some good food and an early night.

Hoosier Half Marathon - Race Report

I planned to run the Hoosier Half as a training event building up to my PR goal race in Louisville 2 weeks later.  It was also one of the focus races for the Quaff ON! Race team as we celebrate the soon to open tap house, Quaff ON! Bloomington, QOB (on Grant St just north of Kirkwood) so we wanted as much representation as possible.  The promise of a party afterwards at the new QOB location was the icing on the cake!

This was my first time running the Hoosier Half Marathon in Bloomington.  I'd heard tell of the hilly course and most of my team mates at Quaff ON! ran the course in training whilst I was enjoying the warmer weather in Alabama over Spring Break.  This left me unprepared for the variations in pace over the course but since this was a training event for me, I decided to roll with team mate, Danny Webb, who had a master plan which went something like this:

• 6:15 average for the first 3 miles (18:45)...19:30 5k
• 6:05 average for the next 3 miles (18:15)...19:00 5k 38:30 10k
• 6:10 average for next 3 miles (18:30)...19:15 5k 1:01:40 @ the 10 mile split
• 6:05 average for the next 3 miles (18:15)....19:00 5k
• Finish with whatever is left in the tank

There was a great atmosphere at the start, the event was hosting the NIRCA national championships so lots of teams representing their clubs, everyone got pretty pumped up. The start of the Half Marathon was simultaneous with the 5k race start and it was downhill so we fully anticipated a lightning fast getaway from the gun. In an attempt to stick to Danny's pacing plan, about 5 of us had deliberately hung back from toeing the line and then had to cut through 30-40 slower runners in the first quarter mile.

The reality of the challenge in this race really came home in the 4th mile - just as we were supposed to be picking up the pace to 6:05 there was a serious hill climb which had me gasping for breath and legs hurting from the effort - I think Danny must have forgotten about that one when he put the plan together! We regrouped and made time back up on the downhill hitting our target time at the 10k mark.

I always feel some relief at the 10k mark in half marathons, it's not really half way, but psychologically it always seems to be OK to think "I've just got to do that over again and I'll be in the final mile..."

This course however had no respect for the false hope instilled by getting to halfway, miles 8 and 9 were really hilly forcing big variations in pace and effort which are much more tiring than just running steady on the flat. As we hit the biggest of the hills in this section of the course (leading up to mile 9) Danny started to fade and I was feeling pretty good so pushed on, opening up a gap as we climbed.

I passed the 10 mile mark at 1:01:35 - the 10 mile mark is another huge psychological moment for me in half's - it means there's "just" 5k left to go. I knew from our short warm up run that the final mile was pretty much all uphill. My original training plan had been to cruise the last 3 miles but the excitement of the race got the better of me and I pushed on. The course was still hilly but the fluctuations were much less, more steady grades, and I found I was able to settle into a pretty good rhythm, right up to the final hill around 12.5 miles. It felt like I was crawling up it - some spectators gave much needed encouragement and I was passing other people, but it didn't feel like I had any forward momentum.

My race time was 1:20:10, I won the 40-49 age group and was 43rd place overall. It was a really challenging race and this result gave me great confidence in my training & preparation for Louisville.

 After the race, we regrouped at QOB, with pulled pork from Big Woods in Nashville and Quaff ON! beer to enjoy on the deck. I got the chance to meet up with new Quaff ON! team mate Matt Flaherty who's the "real deal" - a professional runner, owning the US 50 mile road race championship course record and numerous Ultra Marathon running victories. He'd run the 5k race (winning in 14:59) with team mate Danny Fisher, who came home 2nd (15:27) - It's an honor to call great athletes like them my team mates.

Spring Break, Spring Sickness....

We had a great Spring Break family vacation in Gulf Shores, AL - despite early season cool mornings and some showers there was plenty of time to relax with the family but also time to take advantage of the warmer temperatures to run and ride in short sleeves since, well it felt like forever.

We did a great ride out & over the Dauphin Island Bridge, including a ferry trip, puncture and time-trial effort back into town - see the Strava activity with pictures of this day out.



Returning to Columbus, I had a "big week" planned to boost my preparation for the Louisville race where I'm aiming to PR (target is to go under 1:18:00).  The big week went like this:

• Sunday - 11 miles with 6.5 miles at 5:58 pace
• Tuesday - Track work out, 2 sets of 2k - 400 - 1.2k - 400 - 1k - 400 with the "long" intervals at 5:40 pace and the 400's at 5:20 pace
• Wednesday - 7 miles recovery in Brown County State Park (pavement & trails)
• Friday - 13 miles with 9 miles at 5:58 pace

This left me feeling pretty tired and I was playing single Dad for the whole of the next week as Clare visited the UK so I knew the opportunities to train would be limited.  However, even my limited plans got thrown out when I was hit with a stomach bug Saturday night leaving me mostly in bed on Sunday and Monday morning.  Just as I started to recover, both kids were hit with the same thing Monday night so by Tuesday evening I had three straight nights with almost no sleep and almost no calories consumed.  I'd lost 5.5lbs and felt pretty weak.
Typically, the kids had bounced back much faster than me and were pretty lively come 5pm Tuesday so we agreed to go to Track Tuesday with the Quaff ON! team - it was a beautiful spring evening and they enjoyed messing around on the grass whilst I ran some repeats.  It was a light session in preparation for the Hoosier Half Marathon which was good news for me as I felt pretty much on the limit as we completed the following:

• 4 x 200; 2 x 400; 1 x 800; 2 x 400; 4 x 200 all at 5:20 pace

It was great to see so many people at the track taking advantage of the warm weather, these sessions are very inclusive - whilst there are groups running at different speeds, we all re-group over the rest periods and everyone's yelling encouragement as people go past.

Quaff ON! Track Tuesdays normally start at 6pm at the Northside Middle School track and everyone is welcome.  We normally retire to a Columbus location service Quaff ON! beer for a recovery drink at the end of the session.  All are welcome!

Death Marched

The Sub-9 Death March is in it's 4th year as a slightly off beat cycling event / race.  The event is based at the Mid West Trailrider Center, just like the Sub-9 Gravel Grovel.  Unlike the Gravel Grovel, there is no route only a collection of pioneer era cemeteries spread throughout the Hoosier National forest which are used as checkpoints.  Teams of two have to plan their own route visiting cemeteries to collect time bonuses whilst including the 5 mandatory checkpoints declared by the event organizers, the lowest net time (ride time with time bonuses subtracted) wins.  This years event took place on Saturday March 8th.

My Death March was a very different experience than originally planned.  After much discussion, Angus, my 8 year old son and I had planned to ride in the Parent & Child category on our tandem:

However, the snow & ice prevented us getting in any training rides and the weather in the week ahead of the event still looked grim.  We made a last minute decision for Angus to stay at home and I was honored to take up Matt Battin's offer to ride with him as a last minute stand-in.  In one stroke this event went from a bit of fun to having the credentials of a serious contender.

The "serious contender" factor was diluted by the fact that neither Matt or I had trained for the ride, nor had we done any reconnaissance of potential routes.  Fortunately for us, the list of cemeteries hadn't changed since last year, so at least we knew where they all were.  Also, Matt had recently returned from a MTB trip to Sedona where he'd ridden every day for a week with many rides over 2 hours and I was (hopefully) carrying some form from Southern Cross, although since Feb 22nd, I had been running pretty much exclusively.

On race day, there was a great turn out and the weather was actually quite nice (only 6 days earlier we'd had freezing rain topped with a couple of inches of snow!).  The Bicycle Station was well represented with at least 4 teams representing and there were many other friends & acquaintances not seen since the Cyclocross season at the end of last year.  Our aspirations of a good performance were further buoyed by the absence of multiple winners, Don Galligher & Pawel Rutkowski from the entry list - scratch one team who might beat us off the list!

Bicycle Station Teams before the start

Waiting for the start

From the go, 3 of the 4 Bicycle Station teams headed away from the crowds, electing to ride the horse trail 90 from the start up to the Hickory Ridge fire road.  There's been much debate about this vs the road route - it's definitely shorter but the trail conditions can be variable although with still frozen ground conditions it seemed like a pretty fast ascent.  We were surprised (and a bit frustrated) to find two riders ahead of us as we emerged from the train onto the gravel road.  We caught up with Jeremiah Johnson and Craig Baker (Speedway Wheelmen) and they rode with us to the first cemetery at Hickory Grove.  It was clear that the road had been a couple of minutes quicker than our trail choice, a fact that gnawed at me for the rest of the ride and proved to be significant in the final results.

Compared to the Gravel Grovel, our Death March route took in significantly more trail - despite this, Matt and I both elected to ride Cyclocross bikes with a view to the long gravel road sections.  Matt was riding his new Trek Boone and I was using my Trek Cronus - we were both amazed by how comfortable and confident we found these bikes on technical trails both descending & climbing, hopping logs and riding ruts.  It really didn't feel like we were giving up much compared to a mountain bike.

We made our way to Callahan, Cornett, Hanner, Thompson, Houston cemeteries.  90 mins into the ride, we arrived a Lutes, where Matt and I had dropped water bottles and some food - we also shed heavier gloves and jackets to be picked up on the way home later in the day.  Doubling back on ourselves, we saw Andy Messer and Jeff Fetterer, our Bicycle Station team mates heading towards Lutes for their water stop, only a few minutes behind us on the road.

The next section of the ride was quite a long drag to the mandatory checkpoint at Elkinsville - the choice being either a long pavement ride past Story or an extended trail ride on Nebo Ridge to connect with the singletrack section of Combs Road.  We chose the trail route, but rising temperatures meant the ground was no longer frozen and Combs Road was a muddy slop-fest.  There were a lot of teams heading in both directions on Combs Road and the gravel road out to Elkinsville, after our descent I was dreading the return leg on Combs however I found both strength and enough traction to ride the climb.

Once back on the gravel heading to Maumee bridge it was clear that Matt was going through his dark patch.  We were close to 3 hours into the ride and everyone goes through dips on long rides, this was Matt's.  We maintained a steady pace, but with tired legs at the Maumee bridge we made what turned out to be a critically flawed tactical decision to miss the short out & back to Fleetwood Cemetery.  Instead we pushed on to the mandatory Robertson cemetery and then climbed Fire Tower road with Matt suffering all the way.  We had to get off our bikes & walk the stairs to the top of the fire tower - this was a good time to fill up water bottles and eat some of the food we were carrying without being bounced around by the gravel, I had some caffeinated Shot Bloks which I gave to Matt.  With food, water and some caffeine on board his dark patch came to an end, we picked up pace and started to relish the thought of closing in on the finish with our final three cemeteries the sun even came out to warm our backs as we rode West towards 446 - that felt really good!

We hit Todd cemetery and the final two mandatory checkpoints, Hillenburg and Mitchell with Matt really hammering the final few miles - we arrived back at the finish as the first team back.  This was a good sign but we hadn't visited all the cemeteries, there were additional time bonuses available and it was possible that teams finishing after us with more time bonuses could beat us - so the waiting started.  Jeff and Andy rolled in about 15 minutes after us - they'd made some different choices on route and had also had to ride out their "dark patch".

Relieved that it's over - at the finish

Pretty soon there were multiple teams sitting out the wait for final results - we washed our very muddy bikes off and talked about all the things we'd do differently next time (like ride the road to Hickory Ridge instead of taking the trail....).  Fortunately Yats turned up to serve food for all the finishers and Upland Brewery turned up with beer for all the finishers - all of a sudden, the results seemed less important!

The results took some time - Tania from Sub-9 had to collate all the teams finish times and the cemeteries they'd visited to determine the net times which set the final positions.  Matt and I had to get back to Columbus for family commitments before the final announcements so it was disappointing when Jeff Fetterer called to tell us we'd ended up 2nd place, by only 3 minutes, from Tim Brown and Kirk Grynwald who had finished 52 mins after us but had three more cemeteries worth of time bonuses adding up to 55 mins.  Our trail vs road decision right at the start of the race probably impacted our time by about 3 mins, and in hindsight, even a slow ride out & back to Fleetwood would have improved our net time by 3-4 mins - two factors in our 4 hour ride which might have changed the outcome & got us the win...

It was a great event, a wonderful day to be out in the Hoosier National Forest and inspiring to see so many people out enjoying riding their bikes, especially the number of Parent / Child teams, a separate category for the first time this year.  For Matt and I, there is always next year - we'll be wiser and potentially better prepared!

Link to final results

Link to my Strava data for the ride

Bicycle Station Teams

Matt Battin & Tim Proctor - 2nd Male

Jeff Fetterer & Andy Messer - 4th Male

Blake Nolan & Randy Witte - 11th Male

Rob Serbent (Gnawbone Lefty) & Colorado Weliever - 12th Co-Ed

My bike set-up for this event (and the Gravel Grovel)

• Trek Cronus CX Ultimate
• Selle Italia SLR XC Saddle
• Shimano Ultegra Tubeless Wheels
• Bontrager CX3 tires @ 40 psi
• 11-32 Rear Cassette
• SRAM Force WiFli rear deraileur (32T compatible)
• 38/46 Chainrings on SRAM Force Cranks
• Avid Shorty Ultimate canti brakes

Pink Power 5k Race - Thinking of Spring....When will Winter end?

After the Ultra Cross race at Southern Cross my focus turns from cycling to running and Spring half marathons.  I'm aiming to break my PR of 1:19:48 when I run the Kentucky Derby Mini Marathon in Louisville, KY on April 19th.  I'm aiming to go under 1:18:00 with a target race pace of 5:54 min/mile.

The bad weather in Indiana has prevented most serious speed workouts with tracks covered in snow and roads icy or snow covered so there's lots of work to do. There are 8 weeks until the race to build up speed and the strength to sustain it over the race distance.

This week the weather was just about kind enough and the Quaff ON! team were able to meet up for "Track Tuesday" which has only happened on two other occasions in 2014.  On Satruday, after two easy days and a rest day, the Crossroads of Indiana Race Series Pink Power 5k race started at 9am.  I planned to use this race as part of a workout which I had dreamed up - in the cold wintry parking lot outside Hamilton Ice Center it was not feeling like such a good idea.... I planned to run the course 3 times at my target half marathon race pace, twice before the race, with a 4 minute recovery and then run the race after a 5-6 minute break.  It's easy to back out of hard sessions like this, particularly when it's something you're doing on your own, so I posted a message to my team mates on Friday evening with my plans by way of making the commitment & knowing they'd be chasing me up to see how I got on - that's enough peer pressure to make me follow-through!

I started my repeats at 8:15 and ran 18:22 for the first time over the race course which is twisty and if anything slightly long.  After a 4 minute recovery, I ran the second repeat in 18:46 - this was by far the hardest psychologically.  Finally, I lined up for the race with nearly 300 other people.  Team mates, Joe Bell and Sara Martin were there as well and I knew that with the other people around me in the race, the third repeat would be easier than the second.  Joe set a fast pace at the start opening a small gap by the mile mark, we were together with the rest of the field about 10 secs back.  In the middle of the race, Joe moved ahead as I was feeling the effects of the previous efforts however, my pace was still good as far as my training target.  Towards the end of the race, it felt like I as starting to close down the gap but Joe won easily about 9 secs ahead of me, my time being 18:13.  It was great to see Sara come home 3rd overall out kicking her rival for the women's victory, Melissa Truex, over the final tenth of a mile.  So the Quaff ON! team took 1, 2, 3 and 1st in the women's race - a great result on the day.  We were all surprised because in previous years, this event has drawn a fast field and our times would barely have been top 10 results in last years race (see below), but you've got to show up to end up in the results and a "W" is a "W" no matter what!

Here's a link to the race section on Strava

My 3 efforts today on the course:

The average pace over the 3 x 5k course distance is 5:54 / mile - exactly my target!

Results from 2014 and 2013

 The Quaff ON! Team finishing 1-2-3

Joe Bell

Tim Proctor

Sara Martin