Deadwood Mickelson Trail Marathon, June 2015

-- What.  Held on June 7, this point-to-point race begins in the hamlet of Rockford, at an elevation of 5360 feet and climbs to 6180 feet over the first 13 miles, with an average grade of 1.4%.  It then descends to finish in the town of Deadwood, South Dakota at 4600 feet, with a couple of additional uphills along the way.  Total elevation gain is 960 ft.  The course is primarily crushed cinder but begins on a dirt road for about 1.5 miles prior to joining the trail.

Driving toward Deadwood from Rapid City, along Alt 14.

The George S. Mickelson Trail is the first rail-to-trail ways in South Dakota, and is named after the governor who helped spearhead the project.  In total, it is 109 miles long and primarily follows a rail line constructed in 1890-1 and last operated in 1983.  The town of Deadwood is nestled in the Black Hills and was a booming town in the gold mining era, with both gambling and prostitution providing major revenue streams.  The last of the brothels was closed in 1980!  The town was declared a historical landmark in 1961 but was on the decline until 1989 when it became the first place outside of Las Vegas and Atlantic City to have legalized gambling.  It's pretty close to Sturgis, which is a big spot for Harley Davidson, and is easily accessible from a flight in to Rapid City.

-- Who.  My dad flew out from Atlanta, and a running buddy of his, Michelle, flew up from Florida to run the half marathon.  They landed Frday around 11 am local time, when I was just leaving the the Badlands National Park. 

--Expo.  Held at the Lodge of Deadwood, which was the host hotel (and inconveniently located at the non-interesting edge of town), was pretty small.  I suppose this is reasonable for a race consisting of only 2410 participants, split among marathoners (358), half-marathon runners (1996), and marathon relay teams (56).  It had the usual expo things but one noted difference was the availability of gaiters, for keeping gravel out of your shoes.  Hmmm, I pondered buying a pair but wasn't sure I wanted to mess with the visual of my funny socks.  In the end I decided to wear my funny socks, which already had holes in the toes, over my shoes so they would serve as gaiters.  We did race check in on Friday, and grabbed lunch at the hotel afterward.

We found the trail near Brownsville Rd.

It doesn't look like much of a hill,
but I tell ya, it adds up.

The sounds from the stream off to the right 
provided for additional tranquility as I ran.

Same stream, as seen when running back to the car.

 -- Course Scouting.  I had a 40 min run to fit in and my dad wanted to check out the trail to help him decide between two different pairs of running shoes he was considering.  So after checking in to my hotel (The Hotel by Gold Dust; I decided to stay in the center of Deadwood, within walking distance of both the rodeo - location for the shuttles to the race start - and the finish line) we set out to find a spot along the race course for a short jog.  My early impression was, it was pretty, it was hot, and I was trying to ignore the lethargic feelings in my legs.  Was this due to altitude or because I'd not gotten in the preceding workouts as planned, because the temp recorded on my Garmin file was only 72 °F? 

 -- The town of Deadwood.  It looks like you'd think an old Western town would, complete with road closure at 5 o'clock for a mock gun fight.  The historic section was perhaps 5 blocks long, and my hotel was in a great location for checking out this area which had bars, restaurants, gift shops, and gambling.  My hotel room was nicer than the price would suggest, clearly newly remodeled, spacious, quiet, and completely suitable for the occasion.  It also had very friendly hotel staff and a slightly mediocre continental breakfast. 

The street is paved with brick in meticulous shape.
The sides of the road still have hitching posts
for parking patron's horses.

-- Pre-race activity (Saturday).  The race had a pasta dinner.  It also mentioned there was a 10-hour bus tour of various area attractions (Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, and some other seriously cool shit), which Michelle and I signed up for.  Unfortunately neither the tour provider nor the race people provided specific information regarding when the tour would return to the hotel, so it was not completely clear whether people could do both the tour and the pasta dinner.  Neither Michelle nor I wanted any part of the pasta dinner, I find these usually stink, but someone on the bus was very concerned about missing dinner and was advocating we leave someone behind in order to get him back as needed (yes, really).  Michelle and I made separate dinner reservations that we ultimately didn't make.  First, we were going to be late for our reservation due to some severe weather (wind-driven heavy rain with hail) and resulting traffic diversions on the tour.  Then our reservation was pushed back and then cancelled due to a full-closure of the restaurant resulting from a kitchen fire.  These combined to leave us scrambling on a Saturday night in a tourist town for a place to eat and eating much later than intended.  The knock-on result was that I got to bed much later than desired.

-- Race morning (Sunday).  I don't know what was up with my phone, but the alarm didn't sound.  It worked fine the day beforehand, and on this day I luckily woke up to the sounds of people outside.  Looking at the clock, it was 15 min before I was planning to be out the door.  I didn't eat breakfast and barely made it out of the hotel in time for my jog to the shuttle buses, which out of nerves I ran faster than intended.  After a couple of blocks I realized I'd forgotten to grab my disposable long-sleeved top that I meant to bring to keep warm at the start, which was certain to be cooler as it was at higher elevation and nestled into the mountains.  

The rodeo didn't have any signs indicating there was a separate place for the buses to the marathon start, and no mention of this was made at the expo.  But I overheard someone else attempting to confirm they were in the right place and we were directed to another spot, which we made it to as the 2nd to last bus pulled away.  Note that there is NO parking at the race start and that participants must be dropped off either by one of the race-provided shuttle buses or by someone else.  I rode the bus as I usually do, keeping to myself and trying to keep my morning hostility at bay, while listening to others talk about their 'terribly slow' low-3 h runs at some other event.  I ate my 1 nutrition bar, which was supposed to be supplementary calories, not my only calories that morning.

-- Starting location.  This was a gravel parking lot with porta-potties.  We were dropped of at least an hour ahead of race time and I found a spot in front of the tire to a bobcat, which at least blocked the wind somewhat.  I sat down indian style with my knees pulled up to my armpits and my tank top over my knees, and hugged myself to conserve heat.  Others, who had done this before, brought small air mattresses with them, that I guess they turned in with their warm-clothes bag.  My dad stayed in the host hotel, which offered a shuttle ride from that location and I kept my eyes out for when he arrived.  Once I saw him, I darted over to tell him where I was and then ran back to my spot of shelter.  He kept pressing me for my anticipated finish time, which I'd been tightly guarding so as to avoid his blatant disbelief, and I finally blurted out that Jack thought I could go upper 3:40's.  Yeah, that quieted him down.  For a nano-second.  My dad is awfully chatty first thing in the morning, a trait I clearly did not inherit.  After awhile a stranger offered up his long-sleeved shirt that he was taking off, and I gladly accepted it.  After some time I returned the nice-person's shirt, joined the line for the porta-potty, and started to get my game face on.  In case you don't know, this involves dancing like an idiot, which I continued after porta-pottying and finding my spot in the group at the starting line.  Mentally, I dismissed all the mishaps to this point and was ready to kick ass.

-- The race.  I headed off as per plan, but couldn't help but notice this did not feel easy.  The starts of most activities usually feel kinda taxing to me, until my heart rate catches up and I settle into a rhythm.  In this case, however, my heart rate was already in the 170's which I can tell you is nowhere near my marathon heart rate, which has been in the 140's for my prior races.  I reminded myself of my goals for this year, to do what Jack said no matter how uncomfortable it felt, aiming to believe in myself as he did.  And I tried to reach the intended pace for ~6 mi.  But I was working hard; not hitting pace; slowing down; and questioning where the line was between giving it all I had and likely blowing up, and admitting this maybe just wasn't the race for the outcome he predicted.  Then the fierce headwind hit, and that was that.  It was so bad I actually had to laugh - I mean, what else is there to do when a gust disrupts your balance?  Altitude, uphill course, cinder, 11 mph sustained headwind..., it was a hard race every way you sliced it.  Never mind that I was hungry from the start.

-- Aid stations.  What the hell were these people thinking?  M&M's?  Where were the usual items, like Gu or bananas?  A couple of the stations had orange slices and I grabbed 2 fists full when I saw them.  This race had a 3 or 4-person relay option.  I was fooled by the people lining the course a couple of times, looking forward to an aid station that turned out to only be a relay hand-off point.

-- Mid point.  Once I reached the 13.6 mile mark and the grade started to level out, I wondered whether I'd be able to pick the pace back up.  I tried, but by this time I honestly didn't believe I was going to be pulling out any great speed.  I thought of my dad, who even though he's run some 20 marathons, had no idea what pace he was going to be able to hold with this much elevation gain, and actually hoped he'd dropped out.  I mean, if I was struggling this much, how's a guy of 69 going to feel?  Speaking of age, I was dusted on more than one occasion by women very clearly older than I was.  All I could think was, "you go girl!" and "where the heck do you live/train?"

By the way, even though the first half was uphill, and the second half a net down hill, those first 13 miles were not the only hills, and each new one added significant insult to injury.  There were also two significant descents that were steep enough for the organizers to warn against becoming "a run-away".  By the time I hit them my quads were so fatigued that I was afraid of blowing up.

-- Scenery.  Maybe now is a good time to re-state that I did not chose this course so I could throw down a fantastic marathon time.  I chose it because South Dakota was the only state I hadn't been to before, and because I thought the western side of the state would be beautiful to visit.  There's another marathon in the area in October (Run Crazy Horse Marathon) that I believe uses a great deal more pavement for its course.  But I really liked the quiet and peaceful experience of running the Bucks County trail marathon, which felt much more 'low key' than the big city marathons I've run (Philadelphia, Chicago, Berlin), and I thought the timing of the Deadwood race worked well with my calender plus avoided a conflict with hockey season.  And this course was gorgeous.  I wish I'd arrived to town a day earlier and rented a mountain bike so I could have stopped to take pictures.  Well it seemed I didn't really need the bike, as one of those women who dusted me stopped repeatedly to take photos before darting off again.  Apparently all I really needed was a camera and to not care about posting the best time I could.

The sky was crisp blue.  The grass bright green.  The pine trees dark green.  The exposed rock faces making a striking contrast against those things and the river the trail followed.  This race wins, hands down, for the most beautiful marathon I've done so far.

My dad and I had consecutive
bib #'s, 82 and 82.  He'd been
worried about tripping over an
uneven running surface but the
trail and the bridges were in
great shape.

 

I wasn't walking, but  wasn't running fast either.

-- Push to finish.  Maybe with about 6 miles left to go, I was pretty ready for the running to be over and my breathing became more labored.  This was also when the headwinds made a return visit and I went back to tucking in behind people to hide from it (thankfully drafting while running is legal, haha).  I was following one guy for some time and when he started walking I gave him a bit of grief, saying I needed him to shelter me across the finish.  By the time the finish line came that guy had come speeding by me and I was really grunting in discomfort, and when I stopped I became concerned that I couldn't catch my breath.  Trying to take a deep breath through my mouth only got me a wheeze and a sensation of suffocation.  The nearby volunteer looked at me with concern and suggested I go to medical, but I didn't know where that was.  So I found a place to lie down and really struggled to catch my breath.  I thought it strange when I discovered I had an easier time taking deep breaths through my nose than through my mouth, and it was honestly some 15 minutes before I was breathing normally.  This was similar but all around more intense than what I experienced when I finished Broad Street this year, and I wondered again whether I may have exercise-induced asthma.

-- Finish area.  Ready for some serious food, I was shocked and dismayed to learn there wasn't any.  What did the finish line nourishment consist of?  1 small thing of chocolate milk, a quarter of a dry bagel, and more M&M's.  I think they were out of fruit which may have been quartered oranges.  This race had no bananas at all and they looked at me like I was the weird one when I asked for either that or a slice of pizza.  Michelle later told me they had no cups for the M&M's; you just put your hands out and they'd scoop some out for you.  Unfortunately, the volunteers didn't think to remind me there was an off-site post-race after party offering complimentary beer, water, and appetizers.

The way my throat was feeling made it pretty difficult to choke down the dry bagel, and that led me to get upset which aggravated the breathing issue, which made me even more upset.  I ended up leaving a sniveling, shaking mess, as I got cold from sitting around in the wind while damp.  What the heck has happened to me?  I went back to my hotel for some warmer clothes and to check my cell phone for a message from my Dad.

-- Catching up with my Dad & Michelle.  No message, so I headed back to the finish and took a look at the posted results to see I'd missed him.  I caught up with him on the shuttle to his hotel.  I ordered food while he got cleaned up, but before the food was served my appetite was crushed by a bad-news email.  This turned out to be the first of many days where I barely ate anything.  

Later that night, during dinner (where I mostly just poked at my food), Michelle asked if we'd seen the really cool age group awards they were giving out - painted rail road nails.  She also mentioned getting her official results email, which prompted me to look for one.  Holy crap, that email indicated I placed 3rd in my age group.  But HOW?  When in the history of mankind has a 4:24 earned 3rd place in a marathon?  Guess I was just lucky that all those women who kicked my pants in the run were indeed older than me.  I emailed the race people and after pre-paying for postage they sent me my award.

Low numbered bibs have turned out
to be my good luck charm this year

-- Results. 2:10:34 first half, 
                 4:24:28 finish  
                 3/17 by AG
                 39/169 by gender
                 121/358 overall
                 Average finish time was 4:55:55

                 1st in AG finished in 3:58:51
                 2nd in AG 4:15:48
                 17th in AG 7:08:45

-- Do it again?  After most races I think about my experience and whether or not I'd do the event again, and I'm leaning toward no for this marathon.  It's a lovely, wide, well-cared-for trail that looks like you should be able to really rip along, but the combo of altitude, seemingly gentle incline, and strong wind combine for a rude kick in the pants.  I almost think it would have been easier to do a marathon's-worth of running on the American Zofingen course.  At least that would be in-your-face difficult and therefore more of an honest experience than this felt to be.  However, if anyone wants to go out there, I'm all in for the half.  And I'm bringing my bicycle.  And my own bananas.

The Build to IM #5

I still owe a couple of race reports (marathon and iron aquabike) but haven't found the time to write them yet.  This is a bummer to me since I both don't want to forget details and don't want to post things out of order.  But a friend asked innocently enough if I felt ok heading toward my big race (Challenge Penticton, Aug 30) and I got diarrhea of the keyboard as I listed all the things racing through my mind over the last couple of weeks.  Now, finally through my big hours, it occurred to me that I could share those thoughts here too.  In no particular order:

1-      The prior IM Canada, which is nearly the same course as Challenge Penticton, has a CompuTrainer course, and both the shop I train at regularly (Cadence), and the tri club of which I've been a member but due to location I am not at all a part of (Endurance Multisport, in Emmaus) have it.  It has been my long-held plan to ride the entire course at least once prior to traveling, to be as well-prepared as I was for Zofingen.  But, this didn’t happen.  Not only did this not happen, but as I looked back at my training I hadn’t done any hill climbing at all since Zofingen and, looking up and finding a course elevation gain of 8000 ft for Penticton, I got a tad panicky.  After freaking out about this, further digging returned more probable gains of upper 4000-mid 6000 ft, putting it in the same range as all my other IM's.

2-      The bike in general.  With an oh-f’-it mentality for Challenge Atlantic City this year, I took risks you aren’t supposed to take: wearing a brand new helmet (that turned out to be too small); wearing new shorts for the first time (they matched my tri club top and though ordered well-ahead of time, they were delivered with no time to test them); and… taking it upon myself to lower my handle bars by 1 carbon spacer ring (1 cm?), to steal a bit more speed through a lower bike position.  Outcome?  >20 min PR for 112 mi, and some f-ing incredible soreness from my neck and saddle. 

Now, given the flat and windy nature of CAC, I endeavored to ride in aero for every mile I possibly could, save sitting up to stop my neck and crotch from screaming.  This lower position undoubtedly contributed to my pronounced saddle discomfort.  The neck discomfort is more like par for the 112 mi course.  However, despite my continued physical discomfort, I’m pretty resistant to put the handle bars back; I mean, twenty minute personal record (!) -  what if that was all due to the lower position?  

Moving forward my belief is, given the hillier nature of Penticton, I should really be able to get away with keeping this set-up for that race with improved comfort, b/c I won’t be in aero as much; I will be sitting upright spinning up inclines, because I don’t believe that while climbing at 6 mph there is any aero advantage by staying on the pads (unless it's super windy) - despite what other iron competitors may do.  However I really do feel this saddle (Koobi) is too wide and needs to go, and I’ve developed a hair-trigger of discomfort for it.

An acquaintance is looking to sell a barely-used saddle that some triathletes I'm tight with love, so I asked to try it and he said he'd drop it in the mail.  After enough weeks that I've lost track, it hasn't shown up.  Checking back with him, he said he sent it to someone else.  So my situation has gone from 'it's really too late to be messing with changing saddles before my race' to an absolute panic to find a different saddle, now 3 weeks before my race (and less than that with travel time). 

Waiting for that above saddle to arrive, I continued to alter the position of my current one to see if some better position could be found.  Well one of the two bolts that lock in my saddle height snapped in half.  This is actually the better result because the broken screw could be drilled out and a new one put in.  When the bolt first broke free I was hugely concerned that I'd sheared out the threads inside the carbon frame (even though I was using a correctly-set torque wrench), which I think would be a major problem.  I rode the bike for 3 one hour rides on a trainer with just the one bolt, but was advised by the shop that if the seat post slipped it could occur faster than I could take my weight off it.  This happened to another customer and when the seat post hit bottom, it cracked the carbon frame.  There's no fix for that; that's a broken frame and a very expensive problem.  My bike was out of commission for a couple of weeks, during which no saddle testing could occur.

3-      Technology, specifically Garmin + Stages + phone issues (+ home internet).  This has been an absurd saga.  The new Garmin (Forerunner 920XT, a GPS watch commonly used by multi-sport athletes) was a bitch to get data off of unless I plugged it in with a wire, because the Bluetooth version on my phone and tablet was incompatible, and it is not possible to set up the wifi access without using GarminExpress, which won't run on either of those devices.  This seemed like an annoying step backwards from the 910 which transferred wirelessly with a USB stick receiver.  And either the extra battery life for the 920 or the slimmer design comes at the expense of antenna size/position/strength in the watch.  Ergo, the 920 pairs miserably with the Stages (which is the power meter that is built into the crank arm of my bicycle).  

And the Stages battery compartment has some darn connectivity issue, that once I changed my battery it seemed the thing no longer worked unless I was physically pressing on the battery door at the time.  Trouble shooting, everyone says "be sure you have the most recent firmware", which I couldn’t download because I didn’t have a new enough cell phone/tablet and Bluetooth connectivity is the only way to update the Stages.  

After extensive trial, error, and internet sleuthing, I found that if I shoved a food wrapper in with the Stages battery that it keep a snug contact.  Additionally, it is necessary to wear the watch in a specific orientation on my wrist, with the watch band pretty loose, else my wrist actually blocks the 920's ability to find and hold the signal from the Stages, which is capable of spanning 10-15 meters according to the Stages website though we are only talking about a distance on my set up of 1-1.5 m. I also came to understand that I need to buy another new thing or I’ll have no power data for my race because I can't see the watch face in the orientation required to maintain pairing with the power meter.  

After some research, I settled on the Garmin 510 (a bicycle specific device).  I called Garmin to order it (they’ll give a returning customer credit of 20% off), to learn the item has been discontinued, because they are releasing a new model.  So the world waits for the 520, which was available last week if you were lucky enough to have been at Age Group Nationals before they sold out of them.  It is uncertain whether devices ordered now will ship prior to the end of the month, which is too late for me.  I also could use a new heart rate monitor because my optical one (worn on the upper arm or wrist) died and the stupid Garmin chest strap, which is highly uncomfortable by the way, cuts the crap out of my chest.  Oh, and I bought a new cell phone, so there's that.  Thank goodness too, b/c my home internet provider are criminals and the service is highly unreliable.

4-      Swimming.  I was super bummed to be 3 min slower in Boulder, after having spent maybe 6 months training with others in my swim group (where I push myself much harder than I ever did swimming alone), than I was at IMMT, for which I was late to start training due to injury (only 15 weeks prep, beginning from not-awesome base fitness).  Yeah yeah, altitude, blah blah blah - I wanted a better time.  I was doing so well the first part of this year, then I wasn’t so sure anymore.  The Steelman (1.5 mi swim) official time/pace has me swimming only slightly better for an IM length swim, and my recent river and pool swims are also not showing as strong a performance as I had earlier this year.  So I’m somewhere between wanting to believe it’ll all be ok, I’m just tired etc from training (which Jack also said), and thinking that I want an honest and realistic expectation and to meet it.  Never mind the feedback from my 2nd swim group that makes me feel like everything I do in the water is wrong.  This week Matt helped me to understand that his and Jack's feedback is designed to help me in open water, and that maybe the other feedback I get would help me in a pool, so it might make sense that the feedback appears conflicting.

5-      Running.  At the end of May my coach projected an ‘’upper three forties” marathon time.  My target race paces calculated out to 3:47-3:50.  Clearly that is not what I ran in South Dakota (4:24:28).  But I’ve been working hard at not declaring “jeez, is he crazy?” when I read his workout/race advice, and I was somewhere between ‘work as hard as possible to make it true’ (which I did for the first 4-or-so miles), and ‘uhm I don’t think this is the course or conditions for this outcome’.  So I have a good bit of uncertainty here with what I should expect for an IM run.  And if I ask him point blank what he thinks I should be able to do, will it even be believable/realistic?  Compared to his instructions, I under ran at Zofingen; I under ran in Boulder.  So maybe I am just not as good a runner as my shorter efforts suggest I should be./?

6-      Overall preparation.  Yeah, I’m undoubtedly stronger this year vs prior ones.  But I can honestly tell you I have not been working as hard since Zofingen as I was before it.  I dropped the ‘every shift like it’s the last one’ focus and really did not work as hard.  Legitimately so, I’d say, since Ed moved out.  But still, what was in May a race I thought I could podium at turned in to something of an albatross for awhile there.  I thought I’d do some smaller tri’s this summer, build up my confidence, but in the end that didn’t happen.

7-      Mental state.  This has been tough.  Being walked-out on; questioning why.  Trying to take care of everything I didn’t use to have to while fitting in workouts.  Working to fix things (he's moving back in, by the way).  Increased hormonal swings due, I think, to the dwindling release of them from my aging IUD.  Re-organization at work, with the concern of being put into a pool for reduction.  Being put back into a department with uncertain opportunities; being advised to get my resume in order to apply for alternate positions.  Honestly, all told, I think I’m in a fantastic frame of mind.  I actually do feel optimistic about this race, about Ed moving back in.  But it has not been an easy road.

8-      Execution.  Not only do I want to break the 13 h barrier, the goal I had in the first place following IMWI and when first considering to hire a coach 3 years ago, but I really don’t think I want to do the full iron distance any more.  It’s an obvious hardship on my personal life.  It will be a hardship on my employment as I do anything new, and going back to being primarily a bench chemist would make this nearly impossible.  I didn’t feel good coming off my marathon, or the 3-day/4-game Vermont hockey tournament played in mid-July, and I really do think I need to prioritize seriously improving the muscle imbalance I have that leads to my disproportionately stressing my right side muscles, or I may not get to enjoy many activities at all for much longer.  So I have this one last shot to get it all right, and 52 min is a lot to shave, or more like carve, off a race time.  

All these things, these concerns, said, my goal this year was to learn to enjoy the process, and to look forward to every workout, and to proving I could do them as written or even better than as written.  If I did that, I’d win no matter the outcome of some particular race.  And if I did that, chances are that the race results would handle themselves.  So while I’ve put a ton of time into getting physically prepared to cover the distance (TP shows 22.5 h this week, admittedly this includes 1.5 h yard work), what I need to remember is to execute to my most basic goal -> to enjoy every minute of it, including the uncomfortable ones.

Prep'ing for a swim race in the Schulykill River. with Ashley.
(Photo credit to French Creek Racing.)

After a swim - run brick at Lake Ockanickon, with Jennie, Ashley, Mark, Jill.

Products I've used - Good-bye Garmin 405

This is my last weekend of owning 3 Garmin Forerunner GPS watches.  I'd been wanting to gift the 405 for some time since it makes no sense to own three of these devices, but had been conflicted about how to get rid of it.  Given their expense to purchase new, it seemed like giving it to a friend would be the way to go.  But given my frustrations with the device, I'd been unsure whether this would be a gift or a curse that I was passing on to said friend.

My Dad has been a fan of metrics forever and had been trying to get me interested in a GPS watch when I started showing some interest in running.  I thought the device he loved - the Forerunner 305 - looked ridiculous.  I have tiny wrists and simply didn't want a 305 no matter what it could do for me.  The 405 was new at the time (2008) and a much better looking watch to me due to its more standard watch-like shape and somewhat smaller size.  So I bought it with my REI rebate despite his feedback that it was an inferior product and unbeknownst to me that he had already ordered a 305 that was being shipped directly to me. 

My memory of the specifics about these devices is a little fuzzy from time and they are memories I'm mostly happy to let go of since buying a 910XT.  But I was moved to put them to paper before shipping it off following my ceremonial last run with the 405 last night.

L to R: Garmin Forerunner 305, 405, 910XT.

The strap's hard plastic does not follow
the contours of my small wrist very well,
making this fit more like a bracelet rather 
than snug like most sport watch bands.

The Forerunner 405.  As mentioned, this model looks a bit like a normal watch but is bulkier.  It has a touch bezel that is similar to that of an iPod (1st/2nd gen) which is used to navigate through the various menu features.  This device was pretty simple to use when newly out of the box.  The problem for me was that it was impossible to use once I was exercising because I sweat like a whore in church when I work out.  The bezel would respond in an erratic fashion, sometimes changing the display when I'd accidentally brush against it and most often being unresponsive to my attempts to change the display when I wanted to.  To ease my frustrations here I'd select the one view I cared most about and then lock the bezel (so it couldn't accidentally be changed) by simultaneously hitting the two other buttons.

This watch does not turn on/off so one needs to pay attention to the battery life.  It has a menu option to turn the satellites off which preserves battery life, taking it from ~8 h with the satellites on to reportedly 2 weeks with them off.  I won't pull any punches, it takes a long time to get a satellite lock with this watch and it seemed to need to do so often.  I used this watch very routinely when training for Ironman Lake Placid and would be disappointed to find that after running from the house wearing it (on a one way run from home to work, for instance) that when I turned the GPS back on at home later in the day for a bike ride, it couldn't find me and had to re-search for satellites though I was only 3 miles from where I had last turned it off.  I'm unsure this is reasonable.  

Two of the places I frequently run are tree-covered trails and both are places where the 405 would lose satellite signal.  Losing signal mid-workout isn't ideal but what I found more annoying was the message box that would pop up to indicate the signal was lost.  This error box unfortunately blocks the entire screen so you can't see any of the display.  This message can be cleared in 2 ways, one is to have the satellite signal restored and the other is to hit 'enter' to clear the message.  The problem was that locking the bezel meant I had to first unlock the bezel (by pressing both buttons simultaneously again), then clear the message, and then re-lock the bezel so my desired display wouldn't accidentally get changed.  Believe it or not, this was all a bit challenging to execute while running a hard workout and right after doing so the damn message would pop back up because the watch was insistent in sharing that information.  If losing the signal wasn't frustrating enough (because it meant the recorded distance information would be wrong), the darn pop up message would essentially ruin the rest of my time-based interval workouts.  

Given this watch's slimmer profile than the 305, I also tried to use it to time some of my swims even though this model doesn't have a setting for recording swimming.  The watch should be waterproof to 1 m (for up to 30 min - OOPS) but the bezel may not get on well with chlorine and it's possible I noted a decline in the bezel's performance over time.  

Yesterday, this watch took >3 h to go from zero to 90% charged.  After charging and turning the GPS on it took 10 min to get satellite lock.  Granted it had been a long while since I'd last used it (Jan 2012!), but this is still very much longer than the 305 took.  Data transfer is wireless via the ANT+ stick, which sounds nice, but I spent more than 1 hour trying to get the computer to recognize the device and transfer the old data, and another 20+ minutes trying to get the one new file to transfer.  It really is a small wonder that I never took a hammer to this thing.

This watch is awkwardly shaped and
 clearly meant for a much larger wrist.

The Forerunner 305.  This model is gigantic and uncomfortable to wear.  Having the band just a bit loose to ease the discomfort means the display would always rotate around to be facing the ground which is inconvenient when running.  The point is to be able to see the display, is it not?  My father swears these issues can be remedied by wearing a sweatband on the wrist and putting the 305 on top of that.  I disagree.  The watch still moves about and works its way off the sweatband.  Plus, this 'solution' doesn't fix that the watch nearly doubles the size of my wrist.  This is not an exaggeration - my wrist circumference is just under 5-3/4 inches, but with the watch it's just over 8-3/4 inches.

The 305 has an on/off power button and the first thing it does when you turn it on is attempt to acquire satellite lock.  This model also takes awhile to do this but is faster than the 405 and holds them much better.  In fact, I'm unsure I've ever lost signal on either of the two trails where the 405 routinely had this problem.  Unfortunately this model suffers from a poor programming feature in that it has to look for satellites first and only after an extended problem doing so does it ask if you are indoors.  At this time it's possible to turn the satellite off so you can use the timing and heart rate monitoring features during an indoor workout.  All the buttons require a good deal of pressure to depress which I find awkward to deliver while I'm running.  This model displays a message "charging in progress" when it's plugged in but doesn't give an indication as to how far along it is, which both the 405 and 910 do.

Pulling this out of a drawer after a long time of non-use, charging took maybe an hour but I don't know how low the battery was, again since there's no percentage of charge displayed.  Satellite connection was achieved in <3 min.  Data transfer requires the device be placed in its cradle and the cradle connects via a wire to your computer's USB port, but there is no problem getting the computer to recognize the device is present (unlike with the 405).

Still a bit larger than my wrist, but this point
is exaggerated by the quick-release strap
which makes the watch sit up a little higher.

The Forerunner 910XT.  I think the claim-to-fame for the 910 was the inclusion of a swim mode.  It's also smaller in size than either the 305/405.  The button design is more similar to the 305 but they depress with a usual amount of pressure and so are easier to operate than those of the 305.  Satellite lock occurs much more quickly than with the prior models (but could still be quicker!) and can be interrupted right away if you are indoors.  Somewhere along the line (maybe for the 310 model) Garmin came up with a quick-release watch strap which I use on the 910 to make it easy to move from my wrist to my bike.  This, combined with the longer battery life (up to 20 hours), makes this single device suitable for me during iron distance triathlons whereas I used both the 305 (bike segment) and the 405 (run segment) for my first iron distance race b/c the battery life on those devices weren't long enough to last for my long day. 

Pictured here are the Garmin Out Front bike
mount, the Quick Release Kit wrist strap, and
the attachment mounted to the back of the 910.

The Data from my run.  Below is a comparison of the data recorded by each of the devices on my run.  The 910 recorded a somewhat longer distance and there are various differences in the reported elevations.  Given the route I ran I suspect the 910 is most believable on this point.  The following day I took the watches to the same place outside to reacquire satellites.  Sadly my phone spontaneously rebooted during the process (proving that all electronic devices hate me) so all I can say is the 910 took less than 1 min (something like 53 sec), the 305 took ~30 sec longer, and the 405 - I was actually unsure it ever acquired them and gave up after 5 min.  

	305	405	910
Distance Recorded	7.74 mi	7.74 mi	7.79 mi
Elevation Gain	566 ft	683 ft	180 ft
Elevation Loss	574 ft	691 ft	194 ft
Min Elevation	49 ft	49 ft	113 ft
Max Elevation	177 ft	177 ft	234 ft
Time to lock satellites 24 h later	<2 min	5 min?	<1 min

What do I think would be better?  A still slimmer version of the 910 would be nice.  The 920 is that but has a bunch of features that I'm not interested in.  One is a larger screen which to me just about undoes the benefits of the device being more slim.  Another is a touch-active screen which I also don't care about following my experiences with the 405 touch bezel.  It also has a variety of other enhancements that don't interest me, such as additional swim metrics, the inclusion now of run metrics, inclusion of MP3 and email/text capabilities.  I know 3 people to have purchased the 920: two triathletes who love it and one runner who feels it's fraught with problems, not the least of which is GPS inaccuracy.  Either way, I can't imagine what feature it could possibly have that would move me to buy yet another $350 GPS watch.  The 910 does everything I need it to.

A word on Garmin heart rate monitors.

T to B: Classic strap, Premium Soft Strap (2010),
Premium Soft Strap (current, bought mine in 2014). 

In my experience, the classic strap worked great but because it was a tad uncomfortable I ended up with a "premium" strap that was supposed to be better; it wasn't.  In fact I think it's sharper at the edges and cuts in more and I have a small scar on my chest from where it chaffed me badly while running.  It also started giving wonky heart rate values so I bought the newest version of "premium" heart rate strap which is exactly as uncomfortable as its predecessor; however, this one

The back sides of the straps, showing the
plastic nature of the classic strap and the
plasticy business portions of the soft straps.  All
are powered with CR2032 coin cell batteries.
The battery is quick and simple to change
on the classic strap (open cover with a quarter)
and more of a pain in the ass on the other straps,
requiring a tiny screwdriver to remove the 4
microscopically small screws that are on the
back side of the oblong plastic part you see
installed on the front of those straps.  Let's just
say if you're using one of the premium straps
it stinks to be travelling and realize you need
a new battery unless you travel with that tool.

gives reasonable data.  All of these are sized for much larger human beings and I have to make the belt as small as possible to use them, and then when the elastic stretches (as happened with the classic strap) I have no more room to adjust.  I will be making the move to an IR-based HRM, either the Mio Link or the Sosche Rhythm, as soon as I get around to being interested in fiddling with yet another new piece of technology.  Knowing I'll be getting one of these one of these days, and quite frankly despising the way chest straps feel, I shipped both the older HRMs off with the 405.  Good riddance.

3 Heart rate monitors and GPS devices at once, for science!  

The white goop is Buh-Bump conductivity gel which I usually never need but

used here to help all 3 straps have the best chance of being read.  Even at 35 F I still sweat more than sufficiently and soaked all the straps.  This experiment taught me that I can actually wear the new strap at the bottom of my rib cage and still get data.

Race Report - Naples Daily News Half Marathon, Jan 2015

Flat and shady course through a neighborhood of cul-de-sacs which gives multiple opportunities to check up on runners ahead and behind you.  Nice crowd support, seemingly ample water stations.  63 °F and humid at race start the day I ran it (Jan 18).

First some (a lot of) running background

1987-1989

Field Hockey 1988.  
(Can't find any track pics.)

I’ve never been a good runner nor believed I would be.  I ran track in high school because it gave me something to do (that required no skill) and I was satisfied with seeing improvements over my own times even though I couldn’t keep up with the kids who won points for our team.  I ran the 1600 and 3200 back then and though on a team, pretty much trained by myself b/c I couldn’t keep up with the other girls and would quickly get dropped.  In my best race I either hit or just broke 14:00 for the 3200, which was a 2 min improvement over the season.

I remember having odd sensations back then, fierce itching of my legs while running, minutes-long sneezing fits upon stopping, and intense stomach cramping after my races.  I asked my track coach about some of this and felt a bit brushed off, like I wasn’t one of the cool kids and not really worthy of her time or concern.  It’s funny how such a thing can stick with you.  Looking back, I wonder why I kept doing it instead of just quitting.

2007-2012

2010 Philly 1/2 Marathon
(PS, I purchased this print 
but don't have it scanned.)

2007 Atlanta 1/2 Marathon

I’m unsure of what preparation plan I used for my first half marathon (Atlanta, 2007, 2:36:18, [11:55 min/mi]) but know the next two used carried-over fitness from other races.  Following Ironman Lake Placid in 2010 (a July race), for which my training focused on time-based volume over effort, I ran the ING Rock ‘n’ Roll Philly ½ in Sept in 2:23:17, [10:56 min/mi]; and following the Chicago Marathon in October 2010 I repeated the Atlanta ½ on Thanksgiving in 2:19:43, [10:39].  I focused on getting faster over the winter lead-up to my Ironman Wisconsin 2012 training by doing some speed intervals that I pulled out of my hat; following that September race I moved on to the Bucks County Marathon in Nov where I had a first half split of 2:03:14, [9:22 min/mi].  I think the moral of this recap is that tangible improvement comes from understanding and embracing that there really is no such thing as off-season.

2012-2014

If you’ve been following this blog you know the Bucks County Marathon did not end happily for me and that I earned an over-use injury of some kind training for it.  That was why I deferred my Shamrock ½ Marathon entry for March 2013 to 2014, but it turned out I couldn’t run it in 2014 either since I had a conflict with playoffs for one of my ice hockey teams.  Using my Broad Street 10-mile Run times for 2012 and 2014 for comparison (1:29:38, [8:57 min/mi] and 1:29:07, [8:54 min/mi], respectively) it looked like I was back to my pre-injury running pace.  And so in September I signed up for TriCamp and the Naples Half Marathon, wondering if I could break 2 h.

I had high hopes for this fall/early-winter's off season that I didn’t meet in large part due to a most unpleasant, never-ending and ever stressful remodeling job.  I can even quantitate the disruption: of the ~180 h of training planned for me between Sept 1 and Jan 11 I completed only 42%.  In fact, I asked to back out of the training camp, concerned I couldn’t run 13 miles and that I’d spend the entire camp’s workouts being dropped.  My coach convinced me this was not the case and I could not deny how badly I needed a vacation and wanted to put in some quality swim/bike/run time.  I figured that starting the run at a 10 min pace and finishing at an 11 min pace would be a reasonable success, given the circumstances.

2015

Alligator spotting after 
our recovery run

Friday evening of TriCamp was the first time since I was 17 that I’d done track workouts as part of a team.  We were put into pace groups and I was tickled pink to be paired with another runner.  For one thing, it gave me someone to follow without having to stare at my watch.  But it was also a boost that the coaches thought I could hang with this teammate.  Our first few intervals were comfortably uncomfortable, meaning I could do it but I’d rather slow down.  Then I felt the shift I sometimes do, where inexplicably running just seems easier.  By the end I was sprinting my butt off and felt fantastic in that satisfying I’m-going-to-puke-but-am-stoked-I-did-it sort of way.  This is when I thought I understood the point wasn’t to do well in the half marathon, but to eek it out on tired legs.

Race Day

With that thinking in mind I busted out in a full-gut laugh when I read my individualized racing plan on Sunday morning.  “Is this serious?!”, I asked my coach, who looked to be on his way to being irritated.  And I remembered the pre-camp pep-talk-email where I was supposed to embrace challenges and be positive and followed up with, “sorry, I’ll be able to do this in 20 min, it just took me by surprise.”  That sentence had a surprising effect on me – by golly, I was going to try to hit those paces, just like everyone else was going to try to hit theirs on equally tired legs.

I’m going to credit Emily just as much as Jack and Matt for my run.  I enjoy my coaching 100% but don’t know what to do with statements that seem ridiculous to me.  “We’re going to swim as a group for this” invaribly means ‘I will get dropped within 3 strokes and swim the whole thing alone and frustrated’.  I hoped I was going to be running with her again since we worked well together at the track and a quick comparison of starting pace ranges made me feel better.  She also confessed just enough skepticisim for her race to help me feel like less of a jerk for literally LOL’ing at my race plan.  For the first few miles, working to keep up with her or even keep her in sight helped to keep me from dropping off when I wasn’t sure I could achieve the prescribed paces.

The 2 h pace group [9:09 min/mi] was huge and crowded up the run path and I lost Emily and another teammate while working out how to get around them.  (Though I lined up in front of them, the 2 h group took off at faster than 8:50.  It took me ~6.5 miles to catch them and I used some micro-intervals of running in the gutter to pick them off one-by-one.)  After losing sight of my teammates I chose various strangers to serve as focal points and stuck to the planned paces pretty well, until mile 10 when I couldn’t seem to hit the end game pace.  I fought to not slow down, particularly after the girl I was following turned around, asked “where’s my friend?” and then sped off.  (I offered to be her friend, but I guess she wasn’t looking for a new one.)  I struggled past the well-meaning spectators saying, “you’re almost there” and the super enthusiastic daughter (?) who kept on screaming, “come on mama” at her running companion, and kicked it up a notch when I actually saw the finish arch.  Maybe I should apologize to the two runners I nearly mowed down in the final few feet, but after all that work I really did want to post my best possible time.  The participant in front of me changed her trajectory to step away from the man in front of her, and I chose to ruin their finishing photos rather than take out the camera man.

Cadence Cylcling and Multisport 
Epic Fort Meyers Tri Camp attendees

I’d been so focused on aiming for my target pace that I didn’t even see my overall time until I was lying on the ground after crossing the finish line: 1:57:06 [8:50 min/mi] - I had no idea I had it in me.  This was the first time I  (mostly) correctly executed a race plan, and if not for Emily, I’m unsure the defeatist in me would even have tried. Apparently, just as Jack has told me in the past, I’m capable of more than I give myself credit for.