Craig's Races and Race Reports

YEAR 2002 RACES -

RACE ARCHIVES - Here is my complete race history from 1995. I am working on previous years, but I didn't really write stuff down before '95 so it will be pretty hit and miss.

1995 (18 races)
1996 (23 races)
1997 (23 races)
1998 (17 races)
1999 (8 races)
2000 (10 races)
2001 (12 races)

RECENT RACE REPORTS:
(2001 reports moved here)

Occidental Distance Carnival 10K - March 15, 2002 - 32:46.68
With a large field of 32 people (including women), I spent a lot of time in lane 2 lapping other runners. The traffic also caused be problems early on as I nearly fell several times being cut off by other runners, and got spiked pretty good just above my knee.

My first mile went in 5:09, which left me well behind the leaders. If felt much harder than it should of. A 5:08 second mile left me just slower than goal pace and at the back of the main chase group. The 3rd mile slowed to a 5:13, and by the time I hit 5K in 16:09 I was really struggling and knew this was not going to be my day.

Just wanting to finish at this point, I settled into an easy pace and figured I would just drift back through the field and try not to embarrass myself too much. To my surprise, I didn't have to slow down that much for it to feel much easier. Mile 4 was a 5:19, and mile 5 a 5:22. Although just a couple seconds a lap slower, it felt like I was jogging compared to the first few miles.

I was actually feeling somewhat recovered, so I stepped it up slightly for the next mile to a 5:19 just to make sure the leaders didn't lap me and to try to go sub 33. Without really pushing, I rolled the last lap in 75 seconds to finish in 32:46. Oddly, no one passed me after I shut things down at halfway, and I ended up 6th overall.

The winner was actually the same guy I ran down to win this race last year. Had I run the way I had hoped, I would have been right in there. Everyone was right about the marathon recovery, however. I really needed another couple weeks to get back to full strength.

Full splits: 78.4, 75.8, 76.8, 78.2 (5:09.2), 77.7, 77.1, 77.4, 76.4 (10:17.7), 77.1, 77.8, 78.6, 78.9 (15:30.1), 79.3, 79.9, 79.9, 80.4 (20:49.6), 80.9, 80.1, 80.2, 80.6 (26:11.3), 80.7, 80.1, 80.0, 78.9, 75.5.

Results are here (scroll way down for the 10K):
Race Results

LA Marathon - March 3, 2002 - DNF
I came into this with less than ideal training, fairly high stress, and light on sleep due to problems and long hours at work.  Because of this, I revised my initial estimates of a low 2:30 time to trying to break 2:40.  I was sure I could beat my 2:49 PR, and also felt I could run twice as fast as my last marathon (a 5:25 here in 2000).

Race day turned out be be quite warm for a marathon.  They reported the temperature at the start as 56, but it had to be closer to 70.  By early afternoon it was around 80.  The start was scheduled for a fairly late 8:45, and this was made worse by a good 30 minute delay because of a bomb scare.  Fortunately I was given sub-elite status so I didn't have to fight with the crowd all that time.

Although I had planned to go out in about 6:15 pace, the first mile was more downhill than I expected, so I was only slightly concerned to hit it in 5:27.  Based on past years results, I expected the top women to average around 6:00 pace.  At the mile mark, most of the elite women were still well ahead of me, so I figured I was okay.  Miles 2 and 3 were both very easy 5:41's, still well behind the top women.

As I would only figure out the following day, the next 4 miles (3 to 7) is where I made a critical error.  I settled into what I thought was 6:00 pace.  A worked my way past some of the lead women (talking continuously in Romanian) and found myself chasing a large pack of women and the typical guys pacing off them.  Sylvia Mosqueda was the only one I recognized, and I originally thought this was a chase group.  As I got closer however, I saw Katherine Switzer announcing from the camera car and realized this was the lead women.  Miles 4, 5, and 6 were not marked, but I was just behind them as I hit the 10K in 34:27.  Oddly, it did not occur to me that this was faster than it should be.  In fact I felt the lead women were running slightly slower than I wanted, and since I didn't want to be one of those guys who just sat on the woman's leader the whole way, I surged past them.  Mile 7 was marked, but the split time meant nothing to me since I hadn't gotten a mile time since mile 3.  It wasn't until the next day that I figured out that I had averaged 5:29 for that 4 mile stretch, not the 6:00 range I had thought at the time!

At halfway, I finally figured out what kind of suicidal pace I was really running.  I wasn't sure what pace my 1:13:43 split worked out to (5:38 as it turns out), but I did know I was about 5 minutes faster than I wanted to be at that point.  I was still feeling good, so I actually thought at this point I was going to run a 2:27.  A couple miles later, however, I was really starting to struggle, with still a long way to go.  I managed a 5:35 for mile 15, but the lead woman went blasting by me shortly after.  By 17 I was really in trouble, and was starting to have trouble seeing.  Knowing they were taking an official split at 30K, I decided to make that my goal before dropping out.  I split 1:46:44, a PR by 13 minutes.  By that point the top 4 women where ahead of me, with a Kenyan woman just ahead.  I then shuffled to next aid station and caught a medical transport back.

It turns out I ran as high as 16th overall at one point, and was still 20th overall (16th male), 5th American, and the top Californian when I dropped out.

The keys to my spectacular self-destruction (in order of importance):
(1) Going out too fast (obviously) - You have to stick with the plan, ignore who is around you, and run the first half as a warm-up, not as a race.
(2) Not drinking enough - This was possibly a huge factor.  I simply couldn't drink out of a cup at 5:30 pace.  I tried to drink, but just couldn't get much down.  Stomach cramps early on led me to drink less than normal anyway, and the very warm conditions made this worse.  Even with drinking a ton after dropping out, I was still down 6 lbs after the race compared to first thing in the morning.  I was probably down more than 10 lbs during less than 2 hours of running.
(3) Not enough rest and too much stress leading into the race.
(4) Poor training, peak, and taper in the final weeks leading up to the race.
(5) Wearing the wrong shoes - Extremely light racing flats caused bad blisters and beat up my legs more than they helped.  This would have become a big factor had I kept going for the full distance.

Now I am just going to lick my wounds for a few weeks and figure out what to do next.

Splits (some missing since they weren't all marked):  5:29.6, 5:41.3, 5:41.3, 21:59.9 (38:52 for 7 miles), 5:37.4, 5:42.4, 22:54.2 (1:13:05 for 13 miles), 6:01.4, 5:35.8, 12:10.6 (1:36:53 for 17 miles), 5:55.4, 7:24 (shuffle from 30K to 19 miles).

Bakersfield Half Marathon - January 26, 2002 - 1:11:43
After a significant drive and struggling to actually find it, I got a couple bad surprises. First, it was very cold (for me). Probably high 20's, but I really didn't have the right clothes for that. I bit of a wind didn't help either. Second, the flat, fast course turned out to be not so flat and fast. The first 1/2 mile was actually cross country, with grass, dirt, mud, and some tight running. From there, the course had a whole series of small hills and sharp corners. Nothing real major, but definitely not the equivalent of the Los Vegas half very fast course.

I started off really tight, and found myself already 15 seconds back from the leaders at the mile, in 6th I think. I felt terrible the first few miles, but by mile 5 I was starting to warm up and was running all by myself in 3rd.

The defending champion and course record holder was in 2nd, and starting to drift back, while the leader had a 30 second gap. After moving into second and running my slowest mile of the race (slightly up hill and into a head wind), I decided to crank things up and see if I could close the gap on 1st.

I hit mile 8 in a surprising 5:15, but was more surprised to make no headway on the leader. I continued to hammer shocking (to me) splits, but the leader was clearly playing with me. There were lots of 90 degree turns, and at each one he would look back and if I was getting to close he would just step up the pace.

My 5:16 12th mile to his 5:25 got me to 8 seconds back. I ran another 5:16 for mile 13 and 31 seconds for the final .1, but the leader ripped a 5:10 and it was all over.

I ended up with a big PR 1:11:43 (old PR 1:15:17) and finished 14 seconds behind the overall winner, the top runner from Fresno Pacific college. My time was such a breakthrough that is was actually faster than my 11 year old 20K PR in spite of being .7 miles longer.

My splits were: 5:40, 5:40, 5:36, 5:30, 5:30, 5:34, 5:44, 5:15, 5:21, 5:27, 5:22, 5:16, 5:16, 0:31.  My final 5K was 16:26, and my final 10K was just over 33 flat (about 1:30 faster than the first 10K).

Newspaper Article, Results