A few months ago, I was dreaming and hoping to run this championship double again. This year wasn’t ideal though as Jackpot (100-mile Road Nationals) had moved from the classic mid-February date to actually picking the classic date of the 50K Road Nationals which had been held on the first Sunday of March for probably a decade now. Initially at Caumsett Park on the North shore of Long Island, and now at Heckscher Park, on its South shore, after constructions at Caumsett forced the organizing club, GLIRC, to find a new venue. With the 100-mile Road Nationals held on a Friday to avoid the weekend foot traffic on the course, and Heckscher happening on a Sunday, that was still leaving 9 to 8 days, depending on when you finished the 100-miler. Now, with my disappointment of completely missing my time goal at Jackpot, I was somehow glad I had not signed up for the 50K championships in advance. But it didn’t take more than 2 days before I felt I would regret not making an attempt. The appeal of the USATF medals...
Due to work conflicts in particular, and the fact that I ran Way Too Cool at the beginning of March for 10 years in a row from 2006 to 2015, I’ve had a sparse history with that race:
- 2014: 3:37:12
- 2015: 3:21:16 (my 50th 50K, in 10 years!)
- 2016: 3:18:05; the year I got a mini stroke (TIA), one mile from the finish and still managed to break the 31-year-old M50-54 American record, the same year Rich Hanna ran 3:17:52 (got a more major stroke three hours later at the Newark, that time losing my whole left side for 20 minutes, hectic!)
- 2019: 3:31:57; I had injured my hamstring attach 4 months earlier but didn’t know what the pain was about yet, and still had the great pre-injury form
- 2020: 3:59:39; that one really hurt because the pain hadn’t passed despite taking 7 months off in 2019 and, this time, I had lost of lot of my physical conditioning.
After 2020, with the injury hitting through most of 2022, it wasn’t worth making the trip to New York. This year I was anxious to get a new live and field test of what I could do on that distance, my favorite ultra distance as I completed 75 50K races so far. Why is that my sweet spot? Just short enough to make it an ultra while keeping the pain on the low side and allowing to sustain some marathon speed.
After the blues Jackpot generated, Agnès wasn’t so thrilled about the idea of the double, but I’m super grateful she showed support when she learned that it was only 50K. I signed-up just before the limit on Thursday evening, and booked the whole logistics (airfare, hotel, rental car, airport parking) in record time. There again I was on a plane on Saturday, making it to the hotel by 10 pm (Eastern), wrapping up my Jackpot race report by 11, going to bed at 11:30 and setting the clock for 5:30 am, hoping for a good 6-hour sleep. Oh wait, we were changing time, that meant only 5 hours then. With the 3-hour time difference, it meant waking up at 1:30 am Pacific time, what wouldn’t we do for our passion! After decades of heavy international travels, I’m pretty good with managing jet lag, but I certainly felt like an early wake-up call, although I actually woke up on my own before the alarm rang. And I’m writing this on a plane which got delayed again like last Saturday, and scheduled to reach SFO at 12:15 am, Pacific, keeping me awake for more than 24 hours again, some additional good ultra training…
My hotel was 15 minutes away from the start, that was easy. And, like the weather forecast predicted, the skies were all blue, the Ocean breeze low, and the temperature right on the freezing point: perfect setting for a great day.
Like many events which have to recover from the pandemic, the field for the Nationals was really small, with about 40. Thankfully GLIRC runs a non-championship 50K along our race, as well as a 25K which starts 5 minutes after us. With the wide range of paces, and the 5K loop format, that makes for some constant company through the morning and beginning of afternoon.
After an encouraging 3:42 at Jed Smith 50K a month ago, including a 3:05 marathon split, an official Boston qualifier, and only one other participant in my age group, my goal was to see if I could get under 3:40 at least, and close to an even 7 minute/mile pace (3:37:15 or so) or 21:45 per lap. The start was so fast, that made it easier to not being even tempted to follow the lead men, and even women! I was wearing 2 long sleeves tops plus tight and shorts, when most of the leaders were in singlets and shorts.
I was quite glad to clock just under 22 minutes for the first lap: it felt easy but that meant I wasn’t starting too fast. It was still above my 7:00 min/mile pace goal so I picked up the pace by a few seconds and clocked a few miles just under 7 minutes in the next two laps. I was a bit bummed to get lapped by the leader in my 4th lap but never mind the ego, I had my own goal to pursue. Still, I pushed the pace another notch to delay being caught, and that got me a few miles in the 6:45-6:50 range. Still feeling easy although my glutes were somehow remembering they powered me through 100 miles last weekend… (Photo credit: GLIRC.)
At the 25K mark, I felt so good both physically and mentally that I started thinking of picking the pace up again to get a better marathon split than Jed Smith’s 3:05. The marathon was still 3 laps and a mile away, that was a bit of a gamble, but I hadn’t much to lose anyway, having lapped Joe Jurczyk twice already as he ran a few laps with Roy. (Photo credit: GLIRC.)
To my good surprise, driven by this shorter or intermediate goal, I was able to keep clocking several miles under 6:45, still. As I stopped to remove one layer close to the end of my 8th lap, I promptly sprinted to the finish line to avoid being lapped a 2nd time by the lead runner who finished in a blazing 2:52, phew! With everybody looking at Kallin whom you can see in the background, finishing his 10th lap, I pretended I was finishing too, eh eh... At least I avoided being lapped twice this time, phew! Kidding aside, what a blazing performance from Kallin! (Photo credit: GLIRC.)
I kept pushing to cover the next 1.4 miles to the marathon checkpoint. 2:58, 2:59 and I was still not on the parking lot where the timing mat was placed. I ended up reaching that intermediate goal in 3:01:57. While I would have really loved to get under 3 hours again (which I did on 15 of my 27 marathons), there were still 8K to cover from there, that does count.
Having lost some of the motivation, I did ease the pace a bit, especially at the beginning of the last lap with a 7:36 mile but, with 2 miles to go, I did see a M40-45 bib ahead and that gave me a last kick as I thought I might be in the money, that is one of the top 3 Masters: what about finishing with 7:05 and 6:45 miles to make for a great day?
While I was far behind both the men and women winners, I finished right under 3:37, with 3:36:56 (gun) or a 6:59 min/mile average pace. This time, goal met, and another good step in the right rebuilding direction!
Speaking of a fast field, 4 men and 2 women made the Team USA qualifying standards today! Both top women finishers broke the 3:15 course record, with the winner, Andrea Pomaranski, slashing it with a blazing 3:07:50, at 40!!!! (Photo credit: Meghan Canfield, USATF.)
Kalin Carolus Kahn won the men race in 2:52:47, including a 2:24:56 marathon!
I placed 12th overall, 7th in the Men, 3rd Master indeed and 1st in my age group: making the trip definitely worthwhile, including some prize money as a bonus, an unexpected treat at my age! (Photo credit: Meghan Canfield, USATF.)
3 pouches of Vespa did the trick again, while I drank only one bottle of GU Brew this time, and used 3 GU gels as strategic carbs. I was really pleased with the relatively even pacing this time. I might be able to shave a few minutes but it's such a slow rebuilding path, hard to accept to be so far from a 3:18, only 7 years later. Patience is so hard...
A handful of volunteers were busy in the tent serving hot food, a much-welcomed post-race buffet. Clouds had filled the sky by mid-day but the weather remained dry all day. If I’m not mistaken, rain came back the following day, we got really lucky this time!
After some chatting with volunteers, the Race Directors, our USATF Officials, Lin and Meghan, and legendary friends, Roy Pirrung and Brian Teason, I asked Brian if I could take a shower in their room before driving to EWR. There was a feel of locker room in our small reunion, and that shower was such a treat, especially as my 8 pm flight ended up begin delayed 90 minutes and I got to bed around 2:30 am Pacific. That is 5:30 am Eastern, straight 24 hours up, some good training for longer races this year…
It was supposed to be Roy's 100th National title but he has been struggling with health issue for a few months, I'm sure he'll reach this legendary milestone next year when he becomes the youngest in the M75-79 age group! Roy has ran Spartathlon 3 times, finishing top 4 3 times, I'll have a few questions for him to prepare for my new 2023 goal...
Love this little reunion with the East Coast ultra community, I hope to remain healthy enough to keep running these 10 laps on Long Island, year after year. Special thanks to co-RDs, Carl Grossbard and Suzanne Nelson, and their small crew of volunteers, for daring to run such a championship!
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