I did it!

Hiya!

Sorry I haven't blogged about my race training in the past few weeks...I have been really busy at work, and to be honest, it wasn't all that interesting. I'll give the brief recap now: I ran less, and I ate more carbs. It's all about the taper, folks! And fortunately I am better at tapering myself than Coach Kent was at tapering me when I swam in college (note: to those who don't know what I'm talking about, tapering is the process of reducing your effort to build up your energy for a particular race, but not lose your conditioning. If you rest too long, you are out of shape, if you don't rest enough, you're too tired to perform well).

To be honest, I don't know for sure whether I hit my taper right, but I know that I ran 12.2 miles + 6 obstacles and I didn't feel like passing out at any time, so that's a plus. Additionally, I had no idea how long it would take me, but gave myself a (perhaps generous) goal of finishing within 2 hours. I could run 15 miles holding 8 minutes per mile, so I figured 12 miles at 8 minutes would be 1 hr 36 minutes + an extra 24 minutes to do the extra obstacles, the 0.2 miles, and compensate for the fact that I'd be more tired from switching between slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers. Sorry to bust out the medical jargon again, but basically going from endurance running to a strength activity that requires short bursts of energy is kinda hard on the body. I'll leave you in suspense to see whether I finished under two hours....

Anyhoo...the day was perfect for a race. It was in the 50's, sunny, no wind...I couldn't have asked for better conditions (apparently I am lucky with the weather for the races I choose). Thank goodness I didn't have to run in the heat that the Chicago Marathoners had! Yikes! But let's bring it back to the Urbanathlon. The race itself was so awesome...up and down the lakefront path spanning from North Beach down to Soldier Field. The obstacles were crazy fun, and I was able to handle them a little better than I had expected (since, ya know, I didn't exactly set up a marine hurdle station or a rope climb wall while I was training). The only surprises: 1) crawling on all fours through a culver really hurts the knees! It's also not fun to have your face right up the rear of the person in front of you. Yuck. 2) The marine hurdles (below) are tall. I knew that I had to hoist myself over these hurdles, but I thought that they would be at chest level. Turns out they were taller than me! It required more strength than I thought I would need, but no worries--got through them in no time.



3) I thought Soldier Field and those steps would be hard, but it was worse than I ever could have imagined. The only saving grace was that everyone else was just as dead tired, so I didn't feel as bad about myself.

A special note has to go to my performance on the rope climbing wall. As dedicated blog readers know, I had fits of anxiety thinking of how I would perform on this obstacle. I had not been on a rope since 6th grade when I was ridiculed by my gym teacher, so I had some residual anxiety. Could I handle it now? I am proud to say (and proud of myself) that I TOTALLY rocked the rope wall. It was the very last thing before the finish line, and typically towards the end of a race or workout I pick up the pace and cruise home. But I was reluctant to do this at the Urbanathlon because of the damned wall--I wanted to have energy to get over it. Anyhow, as I approached the end, I had to hurdle over the taxis (fun, by the way, and you can see me just having done that, below)...



...and then I ran to the wall, and there were these marines there yelling at us. The one closest to me yelled "just get your elbow over the top of the wall!" and in that split second I kinda thought to myself "what the heck" and took his advice. So I grabbed the rope with one hand, launched myself from the ground and got my other arm over the top...and then pulled myself over (see the end of this maneuver below). Ha!



So I guess in principle it doesn't answer the question if I can handle a true rope climb, but as far as scaling the wall, no problemo. From the end of the wall to the finish line it was like 50 feet, but I sprinted it (I thought I saw someone get over the wall behind me, and at that point I wasn't going to let him beat me. Not that I'm competitive or anything).

At this point I still don't know what my official time or placing was, but I think I finished somewhere around 1 hour 30 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes. I didn't check my watch when I finished because they had these people at the finish line who were all hysterical about getting your champion-chip (timing device) off you as soon as you finished so that they didn't get stolen. I'll post my official result when they put the race finishes on line.

A big special wet kiss has to go to Eileen for being my awesome cheerleader yesterday: not only did she help get me downtown yesterday morning, but she also had her bike and saw me at almost every stop on the course! All the pictures are from her. What a woman!

And finally, a HUGE thank you to everyone who supported me and GIRF in this event. Your generous contributions were greatly appreciated, but your kind notes and words of encouragement that you provided me as I prepared for my race were absolutely invaluable. Nothing keeps you from slacking off like knowing that there are people counting on you and rooting for you, and I truly appreciated that. In sum, I raised just shy of $2500 for GIRF this year. Even more than for the marathon! Thank you so much for making the event a success.

Since the blog has now served its purpose, there will probably only be a few more posts as I tie up loose ends, give you my results, etc. Thanks again for checking up on me and joining me on this awesome journey!

Much love,

Markus