Pre-race Thoughts:
One of my favorite races is the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon. I can honestly say this race was the turning point of my post-collegiate running "career" and one of the major catalysts in me becoming the runner I am today. I remember back in 2011 I was making steady improvements as an amateur runner and getting close to my college times in the 5K. However, I started wondering what else there was left for me to do other than just competing in local races and fun runs. Then, I saw that the Grandma's marathon / Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon was hosting the 2012 and 2013 USA Half marathon championships, with a qualifying standard of 70 minutes for the half marathon. One of my biggest disappointments as a college runner was never having qualified for nationals, especially since I was competing at the division III level, so the idea of running in a national championship with elite/professional runners was extremely exciting to me. At the time, I owned a PR of 74:42, but for some reason I just believed 70 minutes was attainable within the next 12-18 months. By the end of 2011, I whittled my PR down to 72:52 in Las Vegas, and then by the summer of 2012 I took that down to 70:34. I made a few more attempts at the sub-70 standard over the next few months but came up short for one reason or another. However, I decided it wouldn't hurt to ask and emailed the race directors anyways, and to my surprise the elite athlete coordinator, Sarah Culver emailed me back and let me into the race! I was extremely disappointed when I came down with a bad case of ITBS right after the Boston marathon, but cross trained as much as I can because of how badly I wanted to run in this race. I made the trip, made it to the race, and was forced to drop out shortly after 5K after my IT band flared up.
I remember for months before the race, I pictured myself running in the back of the race and finally breaking 70 minutes, and then "retiring" from competitive running after fulfilling my dream of running in a national championship race. Frankly, I didn't see myself running much faster than 70 minutes and was probably just a bit burnt out from running. One unexpected outcome from my disappointing experience was that I was somehow inspired and motivated to keep on going. I saw a lot of runners at the race who didn't seem all that different from me, but maybe they just ran more miles, had better training in college and/or had a few more years of consistent training after college. Sure, first I went on a bender the next couple of months and put on about 15-20 pounds, but when I beat my ITBS and started running again, I somehow had the belief that there was more in me, that I not only had the potential to run under 70 minutes, but maybe even 68 or 67 minutes... and then who knows??? A few months later I showed up in Houston and dropped my PR from 70:34 to 68:12, surprising pretty much everyone besides a few of the closest people in my life who knew about the kind of training I was putting in. The point of all this is... it all started in Duluth.
Last year, I emailed the race against, and Sarah Culver not only welcomed me back to the race despite my DNF in 2013, but also offered me free lodging and travel assistance for the race in addition to a comped entry. I know I am never going to reach the level of elite running where I would earn significant amounts of money from races, but it was nonetheless cool to be treated like an elite as it was the first race where I was offered more than just a comped entry. I showed up, ran a solid 28-second PR and improved to 67:44. I was happy, but definitely hungry for more.
Over the past year, I have put in a lot of hard training and for the past 5 months my training has been geared towards running fast at one race, the 2015 Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon. While I've had a hiccup or two early in the training cycle (getting sick in late February and then having what I thought was a subpar race in the Country Music half) I felt like I have been on a roll going into the race and was looking forward to finally putting it all together.
Trip Report:
On Thursday morning I made the drive to Denver International Airport, and as usual my flight was delayed. Luckily it was only half an hour this time, and since I had a couple of other guys to wait for once I got to Minneapolis it wasn't a big deal anyways. Once I landed, I headed straight for the car rental counter, grabbed my car for the weekend and headed for the other terminal to pick up my travel buddies for the weekend - Scott Wietecha, Brandon York, and Nik Schweikert. The weekend trip got off to a great start as we hit rush hour traffic right away. We grind along for about half an hour or so before having had enough and unanimously decided to stop for a snack break at the next McDonald's we saw. We all got a burger and fries except Brandon who ordered a grilled chicken snack wrap that took a few minutes for them to make, I guess not a lot of people order those. Refreshed, we hit the road and it was pretty much smooth sailing the rest of the way to Duluth. When we arrived, we were all hungry again so instead of checking into our hotel we went straight to some pizza place where we got some decent sized personal pizzas. Shortly after dinner, we checked into the Radisson Duluth Hotel where they put ll the half marathoners. I met my roommate, Thomas Young, who is a converted ex-cyclist. We chatted for a bit, and then I got a surprisingly good night of sleep.
The next morning my travel buddies, roommate, and a few other guys (mostly Nick's buddies from Indiana) went out for a quick shakeout run and then picked up our race packets and travel checks. We got lunch at the media luncheon and then just hung out for a bit before watching Jurassic World at the movie theater connected to the convention center where the expo was. The movie was pretty awesome and a good way to relax and take my mind off of the race that's in a little over 12 hours. I met up with Peter and got the new WPRC jersey from him, which looked awesome but I still decided to stick with the old one at least one last time. Then, we met up with xenonscreams from letsrun, grabbed dinner at the spaghetti feed and went to sleep soon after.
Race Day:
Perhaps I was a bit greedy thinking I was going to get another good night of sleep like Thursday night, but I somehow managed to get about 60-90 minutes of sleep with a lot of tossing and turning. For some reason, I just couldn't turn my mind off. However, I also remember that some of my best races came after similar sleepless nights so I wasn't panicking. Thomas and I caught one of the earlier buses and got to the start fairly early. I jogged a mile or so and then met Peter on the start line, where we ran for another 15 minutes and then hit the porta-potty. I was keeping track of time pretty well and knew we had over 10 minutes before the race start but one of the race volunteers kept on yelling at us to get on the start line even as I was trying to get in one more pre-race pit stop. Finally, I did my business, changed out of my sweats, dropped my bags at the elite athlete gear van, and got on the line with 3-4 minutes to go. During the last few minutes, it also started to rain, but I think most of us were too focused/nervous to notice or care.
The gun goes off and right away I think 40-50 guys shot out ahead of me. From what I could tell there was a pack of about 6-10 guys up front that went through the mile in 4:45-4:50, and then what seemed to be about 30-40 guys that went out in 4:55-4:57, and I somehow once again managed to find myself in no man's land as I went through the first mile completely alone in 5:00.02.
I ran completely again for almost a mile before people started coming back to me. I picked off a someone right before mile two and then it seemed like I was passing another runner every 2-3 minutes or so the rest of the race. At around 5K I caught a runner in an Air Force singlet, but unlike the others he took a glance at me and surged back ahead. I hit 5K in 15:29, which unofficially ties for my 3rd fastest 5K ever. The pace didn't feel sustainable, but I just kept on telling myself that I would run another 5:00-5:05 mile and then re-evaluate if I have to back off to 5:10s. Before I knew it, I crossed 10K in a little over 31 minutes, which would have been a PR but there was no timing mat there. The Air Force runner and I kept on playing our little game of cat-and-mouse, where I would catch up every few minutes and he would surge, and in the process we made our way up through the field. Finally, around 8 miles or so we caught up to another Air Force runner, who I recognized (Matt Williams). Shortly after we hit Lemon Drop Hill and somehow I went from barely hanging on to deciding I should make a (probably idiotic?) move up this hill. I put some distance on the first Air Force guy but Matt stuck right with me, and then surged. We hit 10 miles in 50:18, my fastest 10-mile time by over a minute. I tried to put in one last move on the final uphill before mile 11 but Matt responded and I pretty much ran flat out for the next mile trying to keep him within striking range. Finally, we hit mile 12 in 60:26 and at the same time I got hit with two thoughts "5 minute pace for another 1.1 miles" and "F*** I have absolutely nothing left". Over the next 2-3 minutes Matt pulled slowly away from me, and I avoided checking my watch because I knew I wasn't running sub-5 pace and I didn't want to get discouraged by how far off pace I have fallen, instead just focusing on running as hard as I could. Finally, I rounded the last turn and just threw whatever I had into the last 300m of the race. With about 40-50 meters to go I got close enough to see the finish line clock as well as see it turn from 65:59 to 66:00, a few seconds later I crossed the finish line, 95% excited/satisfied and 5% disappointed I couldn't get those few seconds out of myself the last mile.
Post race:
I hung out for a bit for Peter to finish and then I jogged/walked back to the hotel. I tried to go out for a cool down but the area around the hotel was ridiculously hilly and my garmin died so I jogged around for 13 minutes and decided it was good for about 1.5 miles and called it a day. My roommate came in at some point, poor guy was in great shape but had some issues and had to drop out. I gave him a ride to the shuttle station and then met up with Scott and Nik for a postrace brunch at some local bar/restaurant place. I tried to catch up on some sleep after but Brandon messaged us to see if anyone wanted to eat so I went to grab a 2nd lunch with him and had a big plate of nachos. I tried to sleep again after but was yet again unsuccessful, and by then Scott/Nik was heading out to grab pizza so I joined them and ran into Sam Mueller was well as a couple of other guys he was hanging out with. I was somewhat disciplined and only had the last 1-2 slices that Scott and Nik couldn't finish and offered me. Thoroughly stuffed, we took about a 2-3 hour break before heading out to grab ice cream at some local place Scott had found. As we were finishing up our treats, the Air Force guys that I battled earlier that morning showed up looking for some ice cream of their own. We chatted for a bit, they were all nice guys and super talented, especially their top guy Ben Payne who has had a very inspiring past 12-15 months as he lowered his PR from the 66:40s to 63:10. Well, at least I kept my race with Matt/Jeremy fairly close so I won't get too much crap from my wife when I get home. (She loves to rag on me when I get beat by other Air Force runners, sigh)
Finally, Scott/Nik and I went to the elite athlete / VIP party to get some free drinks. I haven't had a drink since my best friend's bachelor party (or wedding?) last May but figured I might as well try to enjoy myself... I enjoyed myself, but beer still tasted nasty to me, oh well. We hung out for a bit but didn't run into anyone else we knew, and feeling old/tired we all just went back to the hotel and went to sleep. Finally, on Sunday morning we met downstairs around 6 so we can get back to Minneapolis in time to make our flights. We picked up Brandon at his hotel, and the guy not only ran a hell of a marathon the day before but he apparently was out til 2:30-3 and had only gotten 2-3 hours of sleep. Ah... to be young and 30 again.
The drive was fairly uneventful other than one McDonald's stop for breakfast. I dropped the guys off at their terminal, returned the rental, caught my flight home and the magical weekend was over.
Thoughts:
This was definitely the breakthrough race I have been looking for since my 67:44 last year. I am not sure if I have ever run a harder race and rode that red line for so long. As early as 3-4 miles into the race I thought I would have to back off and run 5:10s soon, but after a 5:06 5th mile I never had a mile slower than 5:05 after that. Again, my only regret was not having 8 more seconds in me, but I was pretty much maxed out so I don't know where I could have picked up those extra few seconds. I am definitely pumped up for the next training cycle and the push for sub-65.
Splits:
5:00, 5:01, 4:55, 5:05, 5:06, 4:55
5:03, 5:05, 5:01, 5:05, 5:05, 5:03, 5:40 last 1.1 (Official Time = 66:07)
Note: 3rd and 6th miles were downhill so it wasn't like I threw in some crazy surge.
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