PEAC Ewing 5K

Right from the start I was a bit behind. Frank is all the way to the right. Matthew next to him in red and in the lead!

20:57 (6:45 pace) 6th Overall (My highest place finish in a race, ever? :)

I had considered possibly doing a race just like my training schedule suggested, but never got around to actually looking for one, so I decided I would just do a tempo run instead. But then I talked to Frank, who is also following a Pfitzinger marathon plan (although he is peaking at over 70 miles) and he was doing a local 5K by him in Ewing. A couple days before the race I decided why not go for it. It also helped that Andy was planning on doing a 5K the following day. I had traded the speed work earlier in the week for a few strides so I was feeling relatively fresh for the race. I knew that my fitness wasn't at it's peak, but I was thinking I was more fit than I was when I did my last 5K. I was definitely thinking I was going to get a new PR. I had even thought about the possibility of breaking 20 minutes if conditions were favorable and the course was flat. Well conditions were questionable (32 degrees at the start) and the course was definitely NOT flat and I  missed a PR by 7 seconds.

The Race

I was so cold when I first got there. I had a hard time filling
out the form with my shivering hand!

I arrived about 45 minutes before the start. I knew it was a very small race (about 100 people) so I wasn't worried about getting there super early. It was ridiculously cold outside for this early in the season. It was the first frost, actually. I had the usual level of nervousness and after signing up and attaching my racing bib, I did a little warm-up. It was a bit too short and then I got a text from Frank saying he was there. I met up with him and his family and waited with them for about 15 minutes before the start of the race. A few minutes after 8:15, we lined up and I was pretty much right at the front. The mayor of Ewing said a few words and we were off.

The first 100 meters were pretty fast as expected. And even so, Frank and his son, Matthew were already way out ahead. I was feeling like I was likely running fast enough so I decided to take it easy. Perhaps too easy. What I didn't realize was how much of a downhill the first half mile really was, but I would find that out later. I hit the first mile in just under 6:30 which sounded perfect to me, again if this was totally flat. The start of the second mile was a fairly significant hill. I looked down at my Garmin a little after I started and it said 8 something! I remember thinking "What is this nonsense?!" I knew I was going up a hill, but I didn't think I was going that slow. That whole 2nd mile I just tried to get it under 7 minutes, and I couldn't do it. I was pretty upset but then I figured, I would just really have to pick it up in the third mile.

I think I actually said "Crap" as I crossed the line and stopped my Garmin.

Ha! The third mile was ridiculous. It was pretty much entirely uphill. My thoughts of picking it up started to fade. I was pretty upset at this point, because it was dawning on me that I was not going to be getting a good time, but I still thought  I could eek out a PR. Usually at about half a mile out I start to really pick it up, except this was the point where the hill got even steeper, so even though I felt like I was pushing harder, my pace stayed at right around 7 minutes.

The last quarter is flat to downhill, but it was too late by then. I kicked it in pretty well, but I could already see 20:4X when I was still more than 10 seconds away from the clock and I realized I wasn't going to even PR. I crossed the line in 20:57 and I was pretty darn upset.

I just thought this was a great picture of
Frank and Matthew (happy with a PR!)

Frank came in a minute ahead of me in 4th place in just under 20 minutes. That made it the 3rd time he broke 20 minutes in a 5K. I remember when he was chasing that for a while. After him, was his son Matthew (age 13) in 20:32. I remember only 2 years ago when Matthew came in just ahead of Abby in about 27 minutes in the Princeton 5K. He improved over 6 minutes from then! It's pretty clear he has a bright running future ahead of him. I'm going to make a prediction and say his high school PR will be 17:14. I was behind him in 6th place overall.  Despite my upsetting performance, this turned out to be my highest place finish in any race I've ever run. I guess that's what you get with  a local 5K with a field of ~100 runners.

Here come the factors (AKA excuses)

So what happened? Why did I not even PR? Were my expectations off? Was I not as fit as I thought? Now that I've had some time to think about it, I've come up with my list of reasons in order of increasing affect on final race performance.

1. It was too cold. I am totally down for cold weather running. Even 32 degrees is fine, but I was not fully ready for it this early in the season. When the race started and I was huffing and puffing the cold air, I felt a little like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz.  +5 seconds.
2. Not enough warm up. This kind of goes with the cold weather. I ran less than a mile and only did a couple strides and I don't think this was enough of a warm up especially for how cold it was. +10 seconds.
3. Too Hilly. This course is definitely the hilliest 5K course that I've run on since High School. Now granted, I've been mostly running on flat courses, so it doesn't take that much to be the hilliest. But still, this course starts with a major down hill and then you are running up and down some hills in the 2nd mile and then going back up the big hill on the last mile. There's about 125 ft. of elevation gain for that last mile. My previous PR at the Hillsborough Hop has a net downhill of a bout 70 ft. and it feels like a pancake compared to this one. +20 seconds.
4. I did not push hard enough. Ultimately, these other factors are beyond my control. But, this is what really gets under my skin. I finished the race feeling like I had more to give. I was upset with the hills and I did not push hard enough. If I compare this race to two years ago when I ran a then, 21:16 PR at the Princeton 5K, I remember not having much of a kick at the end because I was too tired. That's when I know I have pushed enough. Here, I had plenty left in the tank. And this was made even more clear once I looked at my Garmin results. Average HR of 169! What the heck?! That is way too low. Maybe part of it was the cold, but still, I should be pushing way closer to my max for such a short race, and I did not do that. This is what I am most upset about. +25 seconds.

Add it all up and you get 60 seconds and a new sub 20 minute 5K PR! Ha, if only it really worked this way.  It's not like I really believe these made up numbers have any value, but I like to play around with things like this anyway.

The take away

Right now I am mainly focused on the Marine Corps Marathon in 11 days. This race doesn't change anything in that regard. If anything, I feel like based on the conditions and my HR, I'm in a good spot to go for my 3:30 goal, but I will really have to work on number 4 to get there. Now, once the Marine Corps Marathon is over, then I think I would like to focus on running a faster 5K time. I plan on doing a November 5K at Colonial Park which I believe is relatively flat. And then I think I would like to continue working on some shorter stuff into the early Spring. I am still optimistic that the 20 minute barrier will go down in the coming months!

Ups and Downs

The last year of training broken down weekly. Blue = distance, Red = fitness (VDOT/HR).

There are of course ups and downs during the course of training. They are expected. But, that doesn't stop me from trying to figure out the cause each time I have a great run, and even more importantly, figure out why things are not going well. 

The graph above is my last year of training broken down weekly. The blue represents my weekly miles (topping out at 70 during the week of my 50 miler). The red line is my own custom indicator of fitness. It is a combination of pace and distance (VDOT) divided by my average heart rate to produce one number. Back in February when I was really pushing the miles into the 50s and 60s as well as doing some quality workouts before the Rutgers half, I was at my peak fitness. Then in March and April, I had to back off a bit because of some calf issues and I stopped doing the faster workouts. I lost a little fitness, but I still was able to run a pretty darn good half and get a new PR.

Marathon then and now

2 years ago, I ran my 2nd marathon which was a 17 minute improvement over my first. I ran a 3:37, averaging 8:17 pace. I was very happy at the time, but since then, when I was at the peak of my fitness, I was pretty confident I could have managed a sub 3:30 marathon which would be sub 8 pace. When I was making my list of goals for the new year, I was pretty darn confident that I could take another 17 minutes off and get a 3:20 and I even put that as a medium goal. I was planning on going into 70 or maybe even 80 mile weeks to do this. 

Then, after the 50 miler in May, I realized a I had a bit of a knee injury so I really laid off the miles. This also happened to be during the summer, and one thing my chart does not take into account is temperature. So during the summer months, with the low miles and the hot temps, my level of fitness seemed to have really dropped. But as I kept adding more weekly miles and then the temperature started to go down, my fitness started to come back. 

I was happy to see the improvement, but I still wasn't back to where I once was, and no where near my hopes of running a sub 3:20. I  was running out of time before the marathon. I was trying to figure out what kind of pace I'd be able to run and whether I could even get a new PR after two years. After having a fairly good week of improvement, I had a few runs in a row that went terribly. I had some ideas as to why they went badly, but I really started thinking that I would probably have to completely abandon any ideas of a major improvement and just try to PR again. I was pretty darn bummed at this point in my training. But then I has a breakthrough run!

Breakthrough Run

My plan was to finish my long run at my planned marathon pace, and based on the couple terrible runs earlier this week, I decided 8:15 to 8:10 is probably where I am at. Although I plan to do this all the time, I know that really I'm going to try to go a bit faster than that. I decided that if my HR was in the low 160s it would be alright to get the pace down to around 8:00 if I was feeling good, but I didn't want to push it into the high 160s to low 170s range like I had done before.

I was also a bit torn on the distance I wanted to run. I had been reading more recently about how doing long runs in the 20 mile range when you are not doing enough weekly miles was more injury risk for the reward of going that far. I was only going to hit 50 miles this week, and a 20 mile run meant 40% of my weekly miles. According to what I read, 1/3 of weekly miles is really the longest your long run should be which would be more like 17 miles like I had done in previous weeks. But I wasn't really following the rest of the advice of these plans and I figured I'd done it two years ago and was alright and c'mon, I ran a 50 mile race in May. I decided to just go for the 20 for this one time.

I decided at least part of the reason for my recent crappy runs had been dehydration. I just wasn't on top of my water intake and I decided I would not make that mistake again, so I was sure I was drinking plenty of water the days before. I knew I was we'll hydrated based on having to take a pit stop about 5 miles into my run.

Another factor in my crappy runs is I wasn't running until later in the day so it was a little too warm reaching into the 70s. But this morning it was Sunny, no wind and in the mid 50s. I was a little chilly in just shorts and a t-shirt. Perfect. I had 3 GUs in my pockets and a single hand held. I was ready to go. 

The first several miles were pretty uneventful, as is normally the case on long runs. It was a lot hillier than my normal tow path runs which was on purpose since the marathon has some hills in the beginning. I ran past the old home at Jackson ave and past the playground where Abby and Sadie and even Lucy for a bit (although she'll never remember) spent some time growing up. I was in a good mood and feeling strong. My pace was nice and easy in the 8:40s and my HR was in the mid to low 140s. This was a great start, but I have enough experience to know that this mean little this early on a long run.

Next came the hill on Mt. Lucas. This was always my favorite go-to hill when I lived at Jackson. I'm going to guess its at least a 200 foot climb over the course of a mile, which is more than I will come across at the Marine Corps. I decided that once I climbed Mt. Lucas and started going down the other side at around the 8 mile mark I would naturally pick up the pace on the down hill and just keep it at marathon pace all the way home. 

Cruising down Mt. Lucas was as fun as I remembered. I was just letting my legs go and my HR dropped back into the low 140s after hitting the mid 150s going up the hill. By the time I got near the bottom, my 9 minute pace turned into 8:20. I was now heading into Princeton and feeling great. I already had two GUs and my water was about half gone which was about right. 

There are a few rolling hills in Princeton but I was able to keep the pace in the low 8s with my HR still in the 150s so things were good. There is another really nice downhill heading into the tow path so I decided to take it really easy and head in just under 8 pace with a low HR. Now it was going to be all tow path for about 8 miles. Because of the beautiful fall weather, there was a ton of runners out there. And running near Princeton meant passing a few of the faster college kids which is always inspiring.

I had my last GU at around mile 13 and I realized I had been going a bit faster than I had expected at this point. I was in the 7:50 range and feeling great. I started to slowly creep up to this guy ahead of me. I was at a point where I was going to pass him, but it would have been to slowly as our paces were so close, so I decided to pick it up just a bit to pass him quickly. I did and as I looked down, I realized I was now running 7:40 pace. I was feeling really relaxed though and my HR was in the low 160s so I just went with it. This guy ended up passing me then, which was fine with me, and this time I just stuck behind him. For then next few miles I was cruising along in 7:40 - 7:45 pace and feeling wonderful.  This is the best I had felt this late in a run and going at that pace. I wasn't exactly sure what to make of it. I started thinking about how I was really going to start to fade when the last few miles came up, but it never happened. Instead, when I had one mile left, I decided to pick it up some more, and finished it in 7:26 pace. I can honestly say I was holding back some.  I think if I really pushed with everything, I could have gotten close to or maybe even under 7.

Last 5 months of daily runs and VDOT/HR showing the last long run as my best fitness

When I got home, I was absolutely ecstatic. I plugged in my data and uploaded it to fitcharts and sure enough, there it was.  A new peak for my highest VDOT to HR ratio, although this time I didn't need the graph to tell me it. When I looked further at the stats and compared them to a pretty much identical run from two years ago, I got even more excited. For this run, I finished the last 10 miles at 7:45 pace with a 161 HR. 2 years ago on the exact same run I averaged 8:02 pace for the last 8 miles and I didn't have a HR watch then so I don't know that stat, but I did write in my log that I started to fade a bit at the end. 

So what does this mean for Marine Corps?

Of course, the first thing I thought of while I was enjoying my wonderful runner's high from this run, was that it was time I made my pace bracelet for the Marine Corps Marathon. And that's exactly what I did. Having finished the last 10 miles of this training run with a relateively low HR and a 7:45 pace made me think I have a real shot at breaking the 3:30 barrier which would mean averaging 8 minute pace. I did a bit of research online and found this great pacing guide site. I created my pace bracelet and I am ready to do this. As a last check to make sure I wasn't crazy, I posted my intentions of going for sub 3:30 on the sub 3:30 marathon thread at runningahead and a couple folks weighed in thinking I was in great shape to go for it! Now I just need to have as great of a day as I had on this long run and I think I've got a good chance! With my new adjusted expectations I am once again, super excited for my 3rd marathon.

River to Sea 2012

On Saturday, August 4th, while battling crazy heat, humidity, and hills, The IT Band & Other Maladies ran 90 miles, consisting of 14 legs across New Jersey from Milford to Manasquan in 13 hours and 11 minutes! This was the 2012 River to Sea Relay, and we conquered it! The team consisted of Andy, Joe, Justin, Melissa, Pete, Sachin and myself. Also along for the ride was our official team photographer and cheerleader, Chris. Each of us did two legs that ranged in distance from 2.5 to 9 miles. Everyone put forth a tremendous effort.  We were all hurting at some point and we were all supporting each other to get through each leg.  In the end, it was well worth the struggle.  It was a truly awesome experience both from a running and social standpoint.

Very Long Blog Post Warning: This is going to be my longest post.  There is a lot to cover and I don't want to skip anything.  I want to remember this day as well as the very long lead up to it and so there will be lots of details. It's very likely that some of these details will not be interesting to you, but like I've said from the beginning with this blog, this is more for me than for you :) Please feel free to skip around. I'm not even going to get to the actual relay until you start scrolling for a while.  After all, we didn't just show up that day unprepared.  There is a whole back story, and that's going to be covered here as well. Now that I have warned you, let me start from the beginning.  First, the Earth cooled. Then I started putting together a relay team.

Putting together the team

Ever since I ran the River to Sea Relay with my buddy Frank last year, I knew I wanted to captain my own team with some of my long time friends. I had such a great time even though I only really knew Frank, and I just figured doing it with more of my friends could only make it better. Right around this time Andy, Pete and Joe were doing the Steelman Triathlon together as a relay.  Being there with them was such a cool experience and I realized that this was definitely something I wanted for 2012.  I brought it up to them soon after, and they were all interested. Even though Joe had just started running at that time (his first fitness love being the bike).  But, I knew Joe could handle it no problem and he was very excited.

So now we had 4 people so we were trying to figure out who else could join our team. Frank was already going to be part of another team with his running club, the Hamilton Area Trail Runs so he was out. Chris had not really been running too much recently, and whenever I would bring up my interest in long distances, he would insist that they were not for him.  He was more interested in doing faster, shorter stuff with a 5k being on the longer side.  But I figured this was such a cool thing to do with our group of friends that he'd be willing to go a bit farther. I figured right and he was down for it and now we had 5.

Then I started thinking about Sachin.  Sach has never expressed any interest in running, but I knew that it was possible I could convince him to do it as a cool thing to do while hanging out with friends.  And, there was the added benefit of getting into shape. We talked it over and I was pleased that he didn't flat out reject the notion. He was tentative to say he officially wanted to do it until he ran a couple times with Joe and by himself.  But, after a couple weeks, he was ready to commit. Then I remembered that Justin was interested in doing this years back so he was an easy 7th choice. We had our team, and we were going to blast through the training with no problems! Ha, right...

Sickness and Injuries, like the IT Band and Other Maladies

This is how we got our team name. Runners get injured all the time.  Anyone who has run for more than a few months has gotten injured or will get injured soon (sorry to break it to you if you just started running).  I'm using the word injury in a very broad sense.  I'm just referring to anything preventing you from fully training the way you want to.  Sometimes these are nagging little things that last a week.  Sometimes they make you stop indefinitely. As runners we expect that this will happen.  And so it did, and then again, and then again, and then again. You get the idea. These are the injuries we dealt with, somewhat in chronological order.

Andy was having an awesome winter.  He had come off a crazy fast 8K in 32:47 (6:36 pace) and was just getting faster and building miles. He got up to a 17 mile run and we had signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon. Then on a 12 miler we did together, his knee started bothering him. He decided to keep running, but then it escalated rather quickly and forced him to stop. He stopped for a week and tried to go again for a while thinking it would go away, but it wasn't happening. It was his IT band and in April he had to stop completely for almost a month.  Stopping training when you can see your fitness improving is awful, but he was lucky to find a great physical therapist.

I heard fantastic stories of how she would stick these needles into him to find trigger points which would cause his muscles to spasm.  All of this torture was paying off, and very slowly, and very carefully he started coming back. But, he was the first big injury and for a while it looked like he might not be able to run in the event.

I too was having an awesome winter and then an even more awesome spring. I was running every day. I had PRd in daily miles, weekly miles and monthly miles. I ran a PR for a half marathon at Rutgers and I completed my first 50 mile ultra! I had not been injured in a long time and I was looking to really ramp up the mileage in the summer for the Marine Corps Marathon.

But, then after the soreness subsided from the 50 miler, it left a bit of a sore knee.  I didn't think it was too bad (runner's injury denial) so I took it easy but kept going. Then a few weeks later I ran 14 miles with ultra legend, Scott Jurek! I figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I was already compromising by not doing the whole 50k around Manhattan.  The next couple days my knee was really aching and actually kept me up at night.  This was not a good sign.  I went to the doctor and he said I most likely have bursitis (inflammation near the tendon below my knee).  He wanted me to get an MRI to rule out anything more serious but at $500 out of pocket, I opted to just wait and see.  So I took a week off running for the first time in at least a year and really reduced my miles. 

I was always thinking that I would still do R2C, but I was a bit concerned about the lengths of the legs and how well I would do them, and with other folks getting injured, I needed to be reliable. 

Pete has known injury for a large part of his running career. He's had issues with his knees, feet, back, Achilles, calves. I may have missed a few there. But, somehow he has always been able to continue training after taking a few breaks. But then things got really bad with a problem he's had for a while. Pete's foot goes numb after running for a few miles. He went to the doctor and it was revealed that he had a pinched nerve.  And on top of that he had some Achilles tendinitis. At the end of June and early July he stopped running completely. He wasn't sure he would do the event. 

Jeff had started running on the weekends with us at this point, and we thought we may have to ask him to fill in. Then we decided that if we reduced his miles a bit, it might work out alright.  We did this, but honestly, going into this thing, I was most worried about Pete re-injuring himself.

Justin had some scares in the Spring with his heart, and you don't fool around with your heart. After getting it checked out and running all sorts of stress tests he was good to go and started to ramp up to some serious weekly miles. Then, only a month out, we got a scary email about his knee saying he might not be able to run! Luckily, after some PT and taking a little time off, it wasn't as bad as he thought, but as a result we did reduce his miles a bit.

Chris for whatever reason refused to jump on the RunningAHEAD bandwagon.  I knew he was running, but I wanted to see it and I wanted the whole team to see and be able to help with motivation and all.  Finally, at the end of May, I convinced him to log his runs, so he went back and logged the last month of running, and I was very excited because it was more than I had expected.  Things were looking good.  

The next day, Chris suffered a high ankle sprain and that was that.  Unlike the other injuries the rest of us had, Chris was not going to recover in time before the race.  This was very upsetting, especially considering how good he was doing.

We only had two months until the race at this point and we now needed to find a 7th. Justin suggested his friend, Melissa. She had run the same half marathon as me in the Spring so we knew she could handle the distance, and plus we didn't really have anyone else.  Luckily, she was available and she joined our team.  And let me tell you, it was a good thing she did, because she ended up having to pick up all of the slack from the various injuries. She ended up getting 2 of the toughest legs of the race. I should clarify that.  It's not like it happened by accident. I knew she was a strong runner so I gave them to her :)

Joe and Sachin had some minor tweaks here and there but luckily did not suffer anything that forced them to stop for too long.  Our two newest runner were the ones most likely to make it to the day of the race!

Team Runs

Starting early on in winter, we started getting together for some team runs on the weekends. Sometimes we had 5 people, other times it would just be 2 of us. With the exception of 4 or 5 weekends, we had at least 2 people every weekend from the End of February, until the relay! I'll take a break from all the words and let this compilation of team runs video show how it was.

Logistics

One of the hardest parts of this relay, at least for the captain of the team, is the organization involved. I'm not a very organized person, so this was a bit tough for me, and up until the very end I was nervous I was going to forget something.  

There were a slew of emails involved of course, but there was also dealing with who will run each leg so that it's spaced out alright and that the level of difficulty of the legs are inline with the runner's ability. This was especially challenging with our injuries. The second part that was very challenging was creating a schedule so everyone knows where they are supposed to be and what they should be doing for each leg of the race.  Of course, I created a spreadsheet.  I largely copied this from what Frank put together for the relay last year.  This was extremely helpful but even so, putting it together was quite challenging. 

With a couple days to go, I was trying to think of all the things we needed in terms of food, drink, clothes, and anything else.

Race Day!

Congratulations, you've made it to the part of this post where I actually talk about the race!

Pre Start

Andy and I woke up at 4 am to get ready to leave.  We had a bite to eat, drank some coffee and packed up the Mazda.  We arrived at Pete's right at 4:45, like we planned.  Within a few minutes, everyone was there.  So far the plan was working! This was also the first time most of the team got to meet Melissa. Andy, Sachin, Chris and I got in my car and Joe, Justin, Melissa and Pete got in Pete's car and we were on our way to Milford.

On the way, Chris started singing "River to Sea" by Jeremy Enigk, and no matter what music we listened to on the way there and throughout the event, it remained in everyone's heads all day. We were in great spirits despite the early morning and having fun taking turns listening to some tunes from way back in the day. Sometimes when I say things like this, I think am I old enough to make comments like this? Yes. Yes I am.

We got to the check in location with plenty of time to get situated with our race numbers and make sure we were all set and everyone knew what was happening next. Chris snapped this nice group photo of us before we headed to the start of the race a couple miles away, right at the bridge in Milford that connects NJ to PA. 

This was a nice shot, except I felt the need to go alternative camera. 

After Pete dropped off Joe, we stopped at the market to grab some ice and a few more snacks before Joe's start. After all the planning and training and injuries and close calls, we were finally ready to start this event.  I was so excited!

1st Leg - 4.75 miles - 6:45 am - 9:22 pace - Joe

Joe hamming it up and
feeling good

Joe started 5 minutes early at 6:45 which was just fine with me because I thought we might be cutting it close with the 8:30 cutoff and my estimate of us finishing at 8:15. Because it was so early it was still in the mid 70s and the sun hadn't really come out, but it was darn humid. We stopped about a mile up the rode and all got out of the car to see how he was doing. He came by all smiles and was off to a great start.  As expected, he started a bit quick with an 8:30 pace.

We stopped a couple more times and every time we saw him he was in good spirits which is very impressive.  That is one lesson I would like to take from Joe - to keep smiling and being in a good mood even when I am pushing hard. I am fully aware that I can come off a little bit prickly.  More on that later.

2nd Leg - 8 miles - 7:29 am - 7:55 pace - Me
Joe and I slapped hands and I was on my way for my first leg.  The weather hadn't really changed too much.  Still in the mid 70s, a bit foggy and sticky. I started out at what I thought was a conservative 7:5X pace.  I was feeling good for the first few miles and I decided I would keep it at that pace which would keep my HR in the mid 160s. The support was great for my leg with folks stopping pretty much every mile or two. The route was all on one road and just a little hilly, but nothing too crazy. 

At around the 3rd mile I started to slow down a bit, but my level of effort was increasing.  I was a little upset that I couldn't maintain a pace under 8 minutes, but I didn't want to work too hard with my 2nd leg being so much more challenging. The humidity was really getting to me, even though the temperature was still below 80. I continued just above 8 minute pace with my HR in the low 170s until the last mile when I figured I was feeling pretty good and I'd pick it up a bit. I saw Pete waiting for me in the distance at the transition, and I couldn't help myself so I sprinted it in a little and slapped Pete's hand.  I was very happy with my level of effort despite a little bit of a slower pace than I wanted.








3rd Leg - 5.95 miles - 8:32 am - 9:45 pace - Pete
Pete's third leg was mostly on a path which is nice to run on, but hard to support because there were only a few spots we could access it from the road. I was a little worried about Pete's leg (I mean the stage of the race, but come to think of it also his actual legs) because it was 6 miles which is farther than he had run in quite a while.  I know Pete can get through anything which just made me worry more because I was afraid he would push too far through the pain.

We saw Pete for the first time at about the 2 mile mark and he was already starting to hurt. He also had started way too fast in about 8:2X pace.  He still had 4 miles to go, and I wasn't sure where we would see him again to support him. Plus, the temperature was starting to creep up.
We found another spot a couple miles later and he had slowed down a bit, but was still going. He walked with Melissa as she gave him some water and then he was on his way again. We were able to stop one last time with around 1 mile to go and even though I could see he was hurting, I knew he was going to finish this thing, because I know Pete. We were not able to park at the next transition but we were able to find a spot not too far away which meant we could see the Pete -> Andy transition! I was so happy to see Pete finish this leg.  It was a really gutsy performance and I could see how much effort he put into it.  After he took some time to recover he told me that he would never be this unprepared for a race again.

4th Leg - 8.5 miles - 9:30 am - 8:10 pace - Andy
Andy took off for his first leg, but unfortunately we were not on top of who was going to be supporting him.  We were stopping to grab some bagels and use the bathroom, and the other car was mistakenly waiting for us. By the time I realized this, Andy was already a couple miles in. We started driving to support him and of course we hit some traffic.  This was just the beginning of the traffic problems in this event. Luckily the other car caught up with him after he was a little more than 3 miles in. 

Andy's leg was the only one that had a nickname - "The Beast", and this was certainly deserved. I remember talking with Andy about this leg a few days before the race. I had warned him that this thing was really hilly, and mostly up hill. He had looked up the elevation on a map online and it didn't seem as bad I thought. Although it had a huge gain for the first couple miles, afterwards it seemed to go back down and level out. I figured my memory must have been hazy so I figured maybe it wasn't that bad.  Unfortunately, we were both wrong.  After the initial hill, which was pretty intense, it was followed with several rolling hills including two more very significant hills. This thing truly was the hardest leg in this event. On top of the difficulty of the course, it was really starting to warm up.  


I would guess that it was already into the low 80s at this point. But, even with all this, I was pretty confident that Andy was going to handle this thing no problem.  I knew it was going to hurt like hell, and he might not go as fast as he would like, but he was going to push through it. You could tell that most of the other teams put their faster runners on this leg. But even so, as we drove past the last hill, we saw plenty of people walking. We were all able to park in the next transition area to see Andy come in. After almost 9 grueling miles, he finished strong. 

5th leg - 5.9 miles - 10:39 am - 8:30 pace - Justin
I know I keep saying it kept getting hotter, but I think this is where we really started realizing we were in for a really hot day. With the sun overhead and a lot of the remaining legs having little shade and on asphalt, we were going to be dealing with extreme heat. Justin's leg started with some rolling hills, and he was moving along at a good pace and looked very strong. We stopped in downtown Hopewell and when we got out of the car to help support him, it was uncomfortable to be standing, let alone running! This was the point where we started to introduce the ice towels.

Despite the heat, Justin just kept going and surprisingly kept a pretty steady pace. I was impressed that he was able to keep it up. I had done my best to come up with an estimate of how long each leg would take. I really was trying to stress to everyone that this was just a means to help us figure out approximately when we could expect each runner to come into a transition area, but of course everyone ended up taking it as some time they needed to hit. I had estimated an 8:31 pace for Justin, but I did not think it was going to be this hot already, or that his leg was so hilly in the beginning. Despite these challenges, he took the last mile in at sub 8 pace to finish his leg averaging 8:30 pace!





6th Leg - 8 miles - 11:29 am - 8:53 pace - Melissa
Remember how I was just saying how hot it got during Justin's leg, well this would just get worse with Melissa's leg. I ran this part of the course last year and I started out way too fast and was really hurting by the end. So much so that my team was a bit worried about me and asked if I wanted to trade to an easier second leg.  

Now Melissa was going to be doing this and it was hotter than last year. The only thing I knew about Melissa before meeting her this morning was that she was very fast and had run a half marathon in the Spring. Like I said before, with our injuries, I figured I'd give her two long legs. I did not know that running 16 miles in one day would be a distance PR for her. She just took it in stride. I've seen from some of her races, that Melissa likes to start fast, and this was no different. 

We caught up with her after a couple miles and tried our best to offer her water, Gatorade, something, but she was all set. I didn't see her again until the end but I remember the hills in the last mile from last year, and I was thinking about how hard it would be. It was great to see her running it in hard at the end of her leg.

7th Leg - 4 miles - 12:40 pm - 9:15 pace - Sachin
On February 5th of this year, Sachin went for his first run in preparation for this event. He ran 1 mile in just under 11 minutes. Today he was going to run more than a 10K, in the heat and at a much faster pace. Sachin had obviously come a long way, but this was not going to be easy. The sun was directly overhead at this point, and although there were a couple spots of shade, it was mostly out in the open. 

Right before Sachin started, we ran across his parents.  I hadn't seen them in a while and I thought it was so cool that they came out here to see Sachin run.

It was clear that they were really proud of him.  They ended up following us for the rest of the relay, stopping to take pictures and even ended up at the finish.

Sach kept a nice and steady pace throughout the whole thing. Every time we saw him he just kept moving.  After his leg was over, he said there were a few time in the last mile where he wanted to stop for a bit and walk. He figured no one was around and nobody would know. But, then he realized he would know, so he kept on running. This may sound a bit cheesy, but these kinds of moments is what an event like this is all about.






8th Leg - 5.2 miles - 1:19 pm - 11:32 pace - Joe
We were now half way  done, but the hardest legs were still to come for some of us. I think Joe's leg was the hottest of all. I would guess it peaked in the low 90s with some lingering humidity. Even though my leg was coming up and it would still be crazy hot, I got a bit of a break with some cloud cover.  Joe had absolutely no cloud cover. Also keep in mind that with this leg, Joe would be running 10 miles today, making this a daily distance PR for him. He started out at a nice pace, but eventually the heat started to catch up with him and it would force him to slow down a bit.

His HR started to skyrocket so I told him to just take some time to walk to let it come down a bit. Once again, despite this tremendous effort, Joe kept a positive attitude throughout the whole thing. Then with less than a mile to go we hit some really bad traffic. At some point Joe passed us and we realized it was possible he would make it to the transition before I did.  We yelled out of the car for him to walk some more.  He mixed in some more walking but still made it to the transition area before us.  Luckily, it had only been about a minute.  I jumped out of the car, and tagged his hand. Joe was done for the day.

9th Leg - 9 miles - 2:19 pm - 9:11 pace - Me
Wow.  This was really hard. I knew going in that my predicted pace of 8:26 was a bit unrealistic. I knew that I wasn't really trained enough for 17 miles in one day. I figured I would just take it nice and easy and try to keep my HR low and just make it through. It's funny how your state of mind changes during a run. Everything started great. I was running really easy at just under 9 minute pace.  My HR was in the 150s and I was getting great support and feeling pretty good. Even though it was super hot, the ice towel under my hat and constant water was working for me. I actually had the thought I could pick it up a bit if I was still feeling good later.  Ha!

Somewhere around mile 4, I entered some part of town where the traffic was ridiculously backed up. I just thought to myself , "OK, be cool. You are not going to have support for a couple miles, but you have a bottle of water in hand and you are just going to take it easy".  Well the traffic eventually let up after a mile, but then a mile later there was still no sign of my team. I still had half a bottle of water left so I figured it would be OK, but then in an attempt to fix the position of the ice towel under my hat (at this point it was a hot warm wet towel) I dumped out the entire bottle of water by mistake! 

Now I was starting to get a bit upset.  I was approaching 3 miles unsupported with no water, and I was really starting to drag.  My earlier thoughts of picking it up sounded hilarious right now. But, I also thought, this is nobody's fault.  When I do see my friends I need to keep a positive attitude just like Joe does. I really did think this. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in implementing this idea. When I did finally see Andy, Joe and Sachin, I was all business. No smiles, no thank you. But what really made it worse was the dumbest thing. At some point Joe mentioned that he thought I had passed Frank, when in fact it was just someone who looked like him. Andy thought so as well so it was the second time it was mentioned. Instead of saying something like "Oh no, I think that's some other guy.", I yelled "That wasn't Frank! Why the hell do you guys keep saying I passed Frank?! It's not Frank!!" So, yeah, the whole be pleasant to the support crew didn't work so well. Sorry guys :( I think I was a bit nicer to Chris, Pete, Justin and Melissa though.  At least I think so. Needless to say, they all did an amazing job supporting me when they could get through the traffic.  Constant water and ice towels got me through this thing, as well as the cheering out the car window.

I was now about a couple miles from the end and this was probably the longest 9 miles I've ever ran. Luckily, there was some cloud cover.  Even though I was still really hurting, I think if it continued to be this hot, walking might have become a possibility. With a half mile to go, I saw the transition area and I took off. That last half mile was under 8 minute pace, so I guess I did have something left. I tagged Andy and I was done. Unfortunately, there was no one at the transition area when I finished.  I was pretty upset, but I don't need to go in to more detail about this, as it really wasn't anyone's fault, and I think I've already maxed out my act-like-a-princess quota. I was done for the day.

10th &11th Legs - 13.8 miles - 3:41 pm - Crazy Fast pace - Andy & Pete
Andy and Pete decided that they were going to take turns doing mile repeats with Andy starting and ending with a 2 mile. I was a little concerned about Pete doing 5 more mile repeats, but I was also concerned about Andy doing too many more miles after "The Beast" this morning. I guess I was just concerned about everyone doing everything because I can be a bit of a worrier. Pete assured me that this made the most sense since his numb foot wouldn't be an issue if he kept it to a mile at a time. Also, with them being able to come in to the car after each leg and sit in the air conditioning and drink some water, they wouldn't get the cumulative effect of the heat. This plan made sense to me, and though it was by no means easy, I think it definitely worked. How else can you explain the crazy paces these guys were running?

I won't go into every single one of their legs, but they were really moving and they just kept it up. Everything was working great.  The only hiccup was again due to traffic. We couldn't get to Pete for his first leg so he ended up running 1.5 miles, but I think that was better to happen in the beginning rather than near the end. Andy was easily under sub 8 minute pace for all his legs, including his first 2 miles in 7:16 pace, and his last mile in 7:17! I don't have Pete's times, but I am pretty sure he was sub 9 for all his legs and in the low 8s for some of them. Despite my super slow 9th leg adding time to my estimate, by the time these guys were finished we were 16 minutes ahead of schedule! This was my single biggest estimation failure having figured a 9:12 pace for Pete and an 8:14 pace for Andy, but I was darn happy about it :) Pete and Andy were done for the day.

12th Leg - 6.3 miles - 5:32 pm - 8:44 pace - Justin
Justin took off for his last leg, and even though it was starting to cool down a bit, the start of his leg was still hot. I know that a lot of this post has been about the heat, but you have to realize that the majority of races are held in the spring and fall and in the morning when it's cool.  Perfect running temps are in the 50s.  Anything above 60 already means a slower pace. This past spring during the Boston marathon when temperatures reached the 80s, a lot of runners dropped out of the race, and there were a ton of people in medical tents.

Justin looking very intense, finishing up his last leg

Even though we all knew going in that this would be in the middle of August, nothing can really prepare you for it, other than experience. There's not much to say here about Justin.  He was just a machine. He kept up pretty much the same consitent pace throughout the whole leg. It's very typical to start out a bit too fast and then fade in the end, but Justin had the most consistent mile splits of anyone. The only thing he was a bit upset about at the end, was that he wished he knew that it was a bit short so he could have started his kick earlier. Even so, he brought in the last 3rd mile in 7:40 pace. Justin was done for the day.









13th Leg - 7.7 miles - 6:27 pm - 8:50 pace - Melissa

This was the last hard leg left, because after Melissa, Sachin just had 2.5 miles and then we would be done. As we drove by, all of us completely exhausted from our efforts, we couldn't believe Melissa still had to run 8 miles. Just driving through to the final transition area seemed to take forever. Melissa was running this whole way and we were done.  I kind of felt a bit guilty.  Maybe I should not have given her two long legs like this. But if not her, then who? Regardless of how I felt about it, Melissa was handling her leg like a champ. She did also, finally accept some support from Pete with some water :)


I remembered this leg from last year.  The last couple miles are on a trail and even though it's nice to get off the road for a bit, it does feel a lot longer than it really is. It's hard to see when the transition area is coming up, but before you know it, there it is. Melissa saw the transition area and really sprinted it in hard.  I would say her sprint at the end was the fastest any of us had ran all day.  She tackled two challenging legs, and she finished in style.

14th Leg - 2.5 miles - 7:36 pm - 8:15 pace - Sachin
Sachin was last to go.  With the short distance and the cooler weather, I knew he was going to have no problem.  I was no longer worried and just looking forward to meeting up with everyone at the finish. It had been a long day, and after 88 miles, there were just a couple miles left. Sachin really took it fast.  We weren't sure if we would be able to support him at all because I wasn't sure what the traffic situation would be like at the beach. Luckily we were able to see him one time, about a mile in and he was looking strong.

After that, Joe and I dropped off Andy and Melissa at the finish and went to park.  We knew that Chris, Pete and Justin would already be there but we wanted to be sure that someone would catch Sachin crossing the finish line.

An exhausted Sachin with other team members. Finished!

Finish

Happy to be finished!

Joe and I parked the car and had to walk about a half mile back to the beach to meet up with everyone. We were now all together at the finish, and we could finally celebrate. It was over, and it felt great. As I walked around the beach, I was thinking about how the day went. 150 teams started this relay, but only 129 were able to finish. They announced at the end that in the relay's 17 year history, this was the second hottest day! That made our accomplishment even greater.  

I thought about the many other teams we saw along the way.  There were young and old, elite and not-so-elite. Some teams had super team spirit down to matching blue ribbons in their hair. Some had questionable running form, hunched over with bad posture, while others flew by us near the end at 5 minute pace. It was great to be part of this community of runners making their way across the state.

Enjoying some well earned pizza

But most importantly, it was great to be part of a team, supporting each other. I think the best part of this event for everyone was not only the accomplishment of finishing your legs, but supporting the other runners as they fought through theirs. And of course along the way, there was much joking and just being in each other's company. I had very high expectations for this event when I first thought about it a year ago, and they were, without a doubt, exceeded. R2C 2013? Absolutely!

Team Awards

Just one last thing that I'll leave you with. I started thinking about how each person contributed and it made me think of the high school cross country awards we had at the end of each season.  So here are my list of team awards (in order of relay appearance).


Best Attitude - Joe
Everyone knows that Joe is a pleasure to be around.  Sure, he is funny and charming, but really it's his awesome positive attitude that is so contagious. 


Most Upset About Confusion Regarding Which Other Runners Were Passed - Me
Contagious to everyone but me.  This is for me acting like a princess due to a simple misunderstanding and also being annoyed anytime my schedule wasn't followed exactly.

Most Gutsy - Pete
Considering the injuries Pete faced going into this, taking on 11.5 miles is pretty much insane. Managing to get through 3.5 more miles of his first leg after his foot went numb was something few folks would do, but then afterwards running 5.5 repeat miles in the heat?! Impressive stuff.

The Beast - Andy
This is pretty self explanatory.  When you conquer the hardest leg on the course called "The Beast", then you become "The Beast". So move over Yohan Blake, although I would recommend to Andy that he does not start to do Yohan's pre-race beast pose, because frankly it looks rather silly.

The Machine - Justin
I was happy to support Justin on both of his legs, and he was all business. From start to finish of both legs, he maintained a very consistent pace without fading.  Ever the competitor, he sprinted in the last part of his last leg, at 7:42 pace, passing a guy who he'd been running behind for a while. Also being a good sportsman, he went up to the guy after his leg to thank him (Well at least that's what it looked like, I actually didn't hear their conversation :)

Atlas - Melissa
I know Atlas holds up the Earth, but he didn't have to pick up the slack of a bunch of injured team mates. This is of course for carrying the team on her shoulders while handling two 8 mile legs and doing so with style.

Most Improved - Sachin
Going from 1 mile at just under 11 minute pace, to finishing 2.5 in 8:15 pace after already having run 4 miles?! That's some serious improvement.

Best Cheerleader - Chris
When Chris sprained his ankle, I was very upset. Not only because he was doing so good with his training, but I was looking forward to hanging out with him for this event. But then it turned out he was going to join us for the whole way! So although he didn't run the legs, he was very much a part of the team, helping with driving and support in a way that only Chris can. As I'm typing this I have "River to Sea" in my head, so thanks buddy :) And of course he took some awesome photos, many of which are included here.

Running with Scott Jurek

Scott Jurek is in the center down on one knee with the yellow singlet. Can you spot Peter Sarsgaard?

Most of the time I run alone. Occasionally I get to run with friends. But on Tuesday I went for a long run around Manhattan with ultra running legend Scott Jurek!!! (and a few other folks, so it's not like it was just me and him) For those who don't know who Scott Jurek is, he is probably one of the most dominant ultra runners in the competitive history of the sport.  He won the Western States 100, which is like the Super Bowl of ultra running, 7 times in a row! He has won the Badwater 135, a race through death valley in July, 2 years in a row.  He holds the US 24-hour record at 165.7 miles (that's 6.5 consecutive marathons). But, more than anything else, he is one of the most humble, nicest, down-to-earth guys I've ever met.  He is pretty much my new hero.


I've been listening to the ultrarunner podcast for the past couple weeks and last week, Scott Jurek was on because he had just finished writing his new book, Eat and Run. The podcast was great and I was definitely interested in picking up the book.  Ever since I read Born to Run, I wanted to know more about Scott's life and his journey to become of the best ultra runners and now I could read all about it in his own words.  I was also starting to think more about diet and nutrition so I was definitely curious about his Vegan diet. After the podcast was over, I went online to see exactly when the book was coming out and low and behold, he was kicking off his book tour in NY by running around Manhattan! This was too good to be true. On top of that, Chris McDougall, author of Born to Run, and Peter Sarsgaard were going to be there as well, because he is adapting Born to Run into a movie! As anyone who has there priorities in order, I promptly took the day off.


The morning run started at 5 AM on the east side at 42nd st. and went all the way up and around counter-clockwise and back to the start. The whole thing was a little more than 50K. I really wanted to do the whole 50K and I certainly was in shape for it having done 50 miles a couple weeks ago, but my knee had been giving me problems and I thought I would play it safe and do more like 10 - 15 miles. My plan was to go into work an hour earlier just to use the gym as home base for the run.  Then I would run up the Hudson River Greenway toward the group and meet them after a couple miles and then run the rest of the way around Battery Park, up the east side to Bryant Park. And that's exactly what happened.

The Run Itself


After I came up with this plan, I took off from the WFC like I always do on my lunchtime runs, except in this case I'd be going a bit further than I normally would to meet up with the group. It was a beautiful day and I even wore my orange sweatshirt because it was in the 50s at the start and I knew I might need it after the run if I was cold and I wouldn't have time to come back to the gym and change.  This was a wise choice.


I started at a very easy pace but my HR was a bit higher than normal.  I felt fine but I guess maybe I was so excited to meetup with the group and a bit nervous that somehow I would miss them. My knee was so-so. Not that painful, but I was definitely aware that there was something there.  But I didn't think about it too much because I was so excited. I took a little video when I got to my usual 2.5 mile turn around point.

Then I stopped again at the furthest point I've ever run during work.

Finally, a little after the Intrepid, I spotted them! I tried to take some video but I was embarrassed to do it when they were close, so I was left with this clip of me being so excited to see them, but you cannot at all tell what I am looking at so I did not include it. As they came up, I saw Scott and asked if I could join and he said "Of course!" As if they were going to tell me to get lost.  I just wasn't sure what the protocol was. I joined the group and there was about 30 or so runners at this point. I started talking to a random guy about how it was going so far and whether they had a lot of people join in like me and he said there were a few.  They also lost a bunch along the way who had started but then left to go to work or something else. It was such a cool and friendly vibe. There was about an even mix of some very experienced ultra runners, and newbies such as myself. 


As we ran along back to the WFC where I started, I could hear a conversation behind me from a guy talking about the farthest he had run up to this point and I knew right away it was Peter Sarsgaard because he has a pretty distinctive voice.  I turned around and there he was.  I admit I was a bit starstruck.  I'm definitely a fan of his. I waited a little while and then when he was running by himself I ran next to him for a bit.  I wasn't really sure what to say without coming off like a complete idiot, but I knew I wanted to say something.  So I just said "It's so cool that you're doing this and running the whole way...  I'm a big fan." He smiled and said "Oh, thanks." And I left it at that. But, that was enough for me, and I really did mean what I said.  I thought it was impressive that he was going to do his first ultra today as part of the kick off for this book tour.


After that, I spotted Mike Arnstein, aka the fruitarian. I heard him on the ultrarunner podcast the week before the Scott Jurek one.  I had heard of this guy before that, but I really became fascinated after listening to the podcast. I won't go into too much detail here because I want to dedicate an entire post about my recent thoughts about diet and running, but let me just say it was very fascinating talking to this guy who takes raw food veganism to another level, and is apparently thriving on it and breaking PRs left and right.


Shortly after that, we had arrived back where I started.  I had run the 4 miles back to the World Financial Center and it felt like nothing.

A little while later we stopped to say bye to a runner who was leaving after finishing his first marathon!

Over the next few miles, a few people kept peeling off the group and one or two others joined us. I was really enjoying running with this group and also covering new ground.  After running the same routes over and over again, it's fun to run some place new. We were approaching the building where my dad and sister work so I called them to let them know we were going to run by. I tried to get a hold of them right as we were passing and just as we were running away I got a call from my Dad that they were there.  I ran over and saw my sister and dad for a few seconds and they could tell how excited I was.  My sister was especially excited to hear that Peter Sarsgaard was there as well. I left after about 30 seconds so I could catch up with them. Since they were only doing 9:30 pace, it didn't take me too long. But, as I sped up to about 7:30 pace to catch up, I realized my knee was bothering me a bit.  I was a little annoyed but I didn't want it to spoil my mood so I ignored it and was soon back to running at an easy pace again.

Over the last couple miles I ended up talking to the organizer of the meetup who is a pretty accomplished ultrarunner.  I talked to him about the differences between a 50 and 100 miler.  As I've heard many times before, he told me that a 100 is in it's own category and he thinks of a 50 in the same category as a marathon.  I guess that's how it always works.  I was remembering telling someone once I finished my first marathon that a half marathon was closer to a 5k than it was to a marathon and that a marathon was in it's own category.  Just reminded me that I am not quite ready for a 100.... yet :)


The run was coming to an end, but there was still the book signing to look forward to in Bryant Park. We finally turned back into Manhattan and before I knew it, we stopped, having reached the end.  The whole run really flew by. It felt like I ran for 20 minutes. Scott was really happy and was giving high fives to a handful of people who had just completed their first ultra, including Peter Sarsgaard. 

Right as we finished, Chris McDougall showed up.  He was talking to Scott about what was happening next at Bryant park. Scott joked with him about how he didn't join us for the run. Chris was wearing a pair of Tarahumara-like sandals and stopped to talk to a guy who was wearing even more minimalist sandals of his own creation.

After that, everyone went there separate ways and I was trying to figure out whether I wanted to go back to get changed and come back to Bryant park or just hang around. As I was deciding, another runner who had dropped off a bit because he was just finishing his first ultra came by. He was completely exhausted and of course incredibly hungry.  I had overheard him talking before about how he was a Vegan when he spoke with the fruitarian guy and he informed some of us that he was going to find a Chipotle to get a massive bean burrito. This sounded perfect for me, so I decided to join him. I just got exactly what he got and we talked about Veganism for a bit.  Mostly he talked and I asked questions and listened. I'm not going to go into too much detail here again, because I will save it for another post.  After an awesome lunch we parted ways and I headed for Bryant park.


I've never been to Bryant park. It's quite nice, and I was in an amazing mood.  I found the tent where they were setting up and I saw them unpacking the new book.  I walked over and got myself a copy.  I think I was the first one to get it because after I bought it, other folks started to line up.  I found a seat in the second row and started to check out the book. This guy who ran the last 5 miles with us sat down next to me and he was wearing a Dirty German t-shirt. We spoke for a while about the race, Born to Run and ultrarunning in general.  It was cool to meet so many people and talk with them about ultras.  This was all new to me.  I probably ended up talking to 8 or 9 different ultrarunners throughout the day.


Then the event started with Chris McDougall playing the role of host. He talked about how he met Scott and a little about his own book Born to Run which was on sale there as well. 

The coauthor of Eat and Run, Steve Friedman, was there as well as Peter Sarsgaard. Peter spoke about how he met Scott and his own experience with running and how he came to deciding to write and direct Born to Run.  From what I understood, Scott Jurek is going to play himself in the movie. I was running out of battery and space on my iPhone so I couldn't shoot everything.  Here, Peter Sarsgaard talks about what running means to him and whether he has thought about running in races.

The whole event lasted about 45 minutes and then everyone got in a line for the book signing. Scott signed my book and wrote "Dimitri, Be Somebody." It's the title of one of the chapters of his book. I know that kind of thing may sound super corny, but when you put it in the context of this whole day and who Scott is, it wasn't corny to me at all. I thanked him again for doing this and I told him how awesome it was to run with him around NY. He said it was a great time, and he was happy I got to take the whole experience in with the run and the book signing. I don't know Steve Friedman to well, but as he signed my book next, I told him that I was very excited to read it. The last person at the table was Chris McDougall. I told him that I had to shake his hand and thank him for introducing me to this world of ultrarunning.  I told him that I just ran my first 50 mile ultra a couple weeks ago and how his book was a big influence.  I'm sure he hears that all the time, but this time it was my turn. He thanked me, and that was it. 


I left Bryant park with a big smile on my face.  You don't often get to meet the people you look up to, and when you do it can be a disappointment if they do not live up to the person you think they are. Scott Jurek is a truly remarkable person and gives off such a positive and sincere vibe, it feels great to just be in his presence. This took a really long time to write and I don't have too much time to go back and edit it and make it sound better.  I have to go now and be somebody.