July 19 - Rockville Rotary Twilight Runfest 8k

PM: 8k race, 26:46, 18th place, 11 miles

This race was brutal.

I ended up running slightly slower than last year, but upon finishing, it was apparent that times were out the window. Because of the conditions, running roughly similar times (26:37 vs. 26:46) could be seen as improvement.

I started the day with a lot of GRE studying and a quick, 2-mile shake-out around 2:00. I'm sort of on the fence about the real benefits of early shake-outs like this before evening races, but I've been more or less committed to them thus far. It was obvious going out then that I faced a warm evening ahead.

In 2007, the dew point was a low 49 degrees, so the humidity wasn't bad at all. The high for the day was only 82, so it's safe to assume that last year, we had temperatures in the 70s by the time the gun went off at 8:45.

This year, it was 90 degrees outside when I got back into my car at 10:30 and obscenely humid, and the race organizers delayed the start by 10 minutes just to let things cool off. In fact, it was so hot, that someone actually died in the heat during the race. In retrospect, that makes my struggles seem pretty trivial.

At the start of the race, I got out fairly well: so well, that I was leading the pack of non-Africans through the first half mile. I could tell that I was going out on pace, but I wasn't sure where the usual suspects (i.e. guys that usually beat me in 8k's) were, so I deliberately began careening my head around to see if people would start racing. At that point, they did, as about six guys jumped in front of me while I eased back and relaxed.

I came through the mile right around 5:03, which was right in the 4:55-5:05 range I was shooting for. The next mile had a long, gradual uphill, at which point my teammate from college, Richie Booth, ran up beside me. Going back and forth with a few people already, I tucked in behind him, coming through 2 miles in 10:21 or so, which was just what I expected.

Running the turn past the 2-mile mark, I surged through the crowd and back up the small hill from the first mile. I stayed in contact with the people around me, though the fatigue was settling in appropriately. Going into the Montgomery College parking lot, I hit three miles right at 15:40 and on the planned sub-5:20 pace I wanted.

But here, like every year, one bad mile spoiled the whole damn thing.

The deceptive slowdown in this race comes in the parking lot, and I'll have to remember this for next year. Runners make three 90-degree turns before heading up a half-mile hill. Honestly, I think that the sharp turns do just as much damage, because when I looked up heading into the parking lot, I'd lost a little more ground on my group than I'd wanted.

Going up the hill, I felt strong and relaxed, even passing one runner while keeping the gap from growing from the two other guys in front of me. I later found out that the runner I passed was Ben Koch, a guy who I'd met for the first time on a run just last weekend, but didn't recognize in the dark.

But my efforts were apparently more for damage control than any gain. Even though I still felt relatively strong, I did somewhat of a double-take when I saw 21:20-something, putting me at around a 5:40+ mile, way off pace: same race, same crappy mile, every single year. I'm going to need to figure this one out if I do it again.

In the last mile, I just tried to hang on as best I could. For those of you who race with me, you know that my "kick" is more like a long, grinding push from a mile out. I started to tie up with about a half mile to go, trying desperately to close the gap in front of me without much success.

With about 400 to go, Ben came back up to me, and I let him go by, waiting to throw in my last gear when he settled. Now seeing the finish, I threw down my last gear, trying to avoid rigging up. Ben had one more gear left, because as soon as I pulled back up to him, he pushed ahead (or I completed the aforementioned rigging up process...one or the other), beating me a few steps through the line.

Though I didn't see them during the race, teammates Chris Bain and Patrick Murphy, as well as a few other guys I race against fairly regularly, came in right behind me. The trouble is, none of us could really make each other out in the dark. In that sense, the Twilighter is a pretty surreal experience, like racing against faceless, shadowy competitors in a running-themed dream. Or that may just have been the heat stroke seeping in.

All in all, not a great race, but better than Peachtree and just as fast as the Georgetown 8k (raced under similar conditions on a much easier course). OK for a summer race, and I placed better (18th) than I did last year (40-something).

The post-race did not go so well for me. I quickly realized that I was severely dehydrated afterward, aborting my first attempt at a cooldown. I'll spare you the ugly details, but let's just say all of the signs were there, including chills. By the time I'd get home, I'd made at least 10 trips to various toilets in Rockville and Silver Spring. When I got home, I had to force myself to eat some dinner (a Wendy's chicken sandwich and fries: not the most palatable choice, but definitely instant calories) and a quart of Gatorade Endurance (higher levels of sodium, etc., that endurance athletes lose more of).

My last waking hours were painful. I was literally shaking and writhing in pain on the couch and in the bed, clutching my stomach hoping that I would just fall asleep and forget about everything. As I later found out that weekend, I apparently have a separate "condition" (Don't. Ask.) that made the pain or dehydration that much more intense. All in all, in was a tough evening with restless sleep.