Ken's Road to Kona

And I’m Back! This post is so beyond late I know, but whatever.

Coming out of Ironman UK, I decided to concentrate on my running. I suppose I decided that I wanted to be a runner to some extent. That lead me to the track at Franklin Field where I started doing sprint sessions. Little did I know I would meet my arch rival (and friend) Renato. Little did I know, I would meet my coach there. A month or two later, my old Japan colleague Chris would convince me that I should run a marathon in Death Valley, California. Looking back on it now, everything just fell into place.

I already coached myself to running up to 21 miles when I signed on with my coach who is from EAST Michigan (not Michigan as I had written previously). But once I signed on the dotted line, I let him take over. Some of the changes he made were instead of me running 3 days with high mileage, I ran 4-5 days dispersed out. I guess this improves durability. It got to the point where I was running over 40 miles a week. No longer did I have to figure out my training plan for the following week; it came to my inbox every day.

I’ve never been to California, or Vegas for that matter (the airport I flew into).  It was three years ago when I last saw Chris but it was good to see him again. Chris brought along a friend by the name of Ali. Ali is an amazing cyclist/lawyer/soon to be Ironman Canada finisher based in Seattle.

Race Day

Before we arrived to Furnace Creek Ranch, we were notified that we were running the alternate course (mentioned in earlier post) due to the rainfall in the previous weeks. That meant instead of running up to 5000+ feet, we were going to do an out and back on pretty much a flat trail.

As we boarded the buses that would take us to the race course, it was cold and windy. People were putting on plastic trash bags to dampen the wind effect and I even put on my fleece. Any clothes we decided to shed we could drop them off at the aid stations which were located every 3 miles. After a power gel and some water, I stretched and prepared for my first stand-alone marathon.

Mile 1-6

Like any race, the first few miles always feel great. Now, going into this, I guess I should have had a game plan. I sort of had a game plan, but not really. I knew I wanted to go under 4 hours but how I was going to do that…I had no idea. You have to understand, I began my triathlon/running career just a few years back with the Miyako-Jima Strongman. At that time, I ran my first 10k in 1 hour 20 minutes. At that time, Chris was a seasoned athlete. I didn’t know how much I’d improved my run compared to Chris, but my goal was to keep him in my sight for as long as I could. From the start, I was able to keep him within 50 yards of me. It’s wasn’t difficult to spot his wirey 6 ft 8′ inch frame. I couldn’t tell though…was he taking it easy or running in a concentrated effort? All I know is that I was running 8:30-:845 miles and feeling good. But could I hold it?

This situation was all new to me. I felt I was holding back, but just not sure if I was holding back enough. I passed the first aid station without getting anything and just used my water bottle of Enervitene strapped around my waist. When I came to Mile 6, I stopped to ditch my fleece and ran with arm warmers as it was still pretty chilly. The only bad thing about stopping and taking off my fleece off was that I lost about 30 seconds which put Chris almost out of sight.The Death Valley Marathon also had a 30k option. I was surprised to see Ali jump ahead of both of us, but considering she was running the 30k, it made sense.

Mile 7-13.1

I’m trucking along pretty well, feeling good. I’m trying not to get too excited because I know this is going to be a long day. That’s the problem with long distance racing: “almost there” is so subjective. I’ve caught myself saying that a few times: I’m almost at the half way point, or I’m almost almost at the finish; this has gotten me into trouble a few times.  Mile 9 is the 30k turn around and head back (30k=18 miles). I was  expecting to see Ali running towards me around mile 7 or 8 since that is what she signed up for, however after awhile I wondering,  “Did she decide to just do the marathon”? As participant’s true pace started to show, one of the more interesting things I saw were people carrying backpacks, and carrying multiple Powerbars in a fuelbelt-like contraption! Dude, its’ a marathon, not Survivor. I actually thought of asking that fellow if I can take one of those off him.

Death Valley is what you expect it to be: pretty bleak. The trail is a mix of rocks and gravel which is hard to attain traction at times; I know I almost tripped a few times. Coming into the turnaround, the total elapsed time was 1 hour 53 minutes. Right before I got there, I saw Chris running towards me and he looked fresh, talking with some fellow runners, looking happy. Bastard.  I also saw Ali coming the opposite way a little further back meaning Chris had already passed here. Yep, she decided to do the marathon. She however, wasn’t talking with anyone.

Mile 13.1 – 21

Things got a little interesting at the half way point (as they always do). Ali looked steady, and as I started to catch up to her, I thought about patting her on the butt. We had joked before the race that if Chris or I passed her, we would pat her on the butt and make a joke. However, I didn’t know her that well and the thought of it just made me uncomfortable. After the aid station at mile 15  and passing Ali, I looked at my Garmin and noticed while I was running a 8:36 mile; my heart-rate was at a 165. I felt 165 was way too high. To not risk blowing up at mile 20, I decided to bring my pace down considerably. I’ve been asked, “Well, how did you feel at the moment?”  I felt good, but I wasn’t confident looking at my heart rate I could hold that for much longer.

Back when I was in college, I was on the crew team. My coach always talked about gaining strength from each other while doing erg pieces. He use to say when you are in perfect sync, things become easier, and there is a certain type of “thing” that goes on where you gather strength from one another. Well, I don’t know if that happened, but around mile 17, I started running with a gentleman in his 40’s. I’ll call him Jim. Jim an I ran together in sync for about 6 miles at a about a 9:20ish pace. We didn’t say a word to each other the entire time. It was quiet, we were hurting, but we just stayed in stride.

Mile 21-24

Jim and I were still together. Foot striking the dirt and gravel at the same time. I can hear him breathe, and he I. He would run ahead a little, keeping the pace true, and I’d catch up, and I’d do the same in return. We were two men on a mission. At mile 22-23, you can see the finish line in the distance as you are on top of a small peak before you go downhill and then uphill to the finish.  A little before the last aid station at mile 24, a women passed us and looked quite strong, but had to use to port-a-potty which was located at the same place as the aid station. As Jim and I arrived to the last aid station, the woman popped out of the port-a-potty and resumed running.  Jim and I, getting his last feed at the aid station looked at me and said,

“Go get her, no reason, to hold back for me.”

I was  hurting, but I felt I had an extra spurt left in the tank. I really thought I could negative split the rest of the last two miles and finish under four hours, but it would be close.

I gave Jim a nod and I went after her. It just so happened at this point the course started to go back uphill. My watch alarmed when I hit the 25 mile mark (as it does for every mile) and I started to walk. 173 my heart rate read. Looking at my watch, I knew it’d be really close to breaking 4 hours. I guess looking back on it I probably should have ran each mile a little faster. I stayed with her running from about a 9:20 mile with Jim, to running a 8 min mile. After 3/4th of a mile I fell apart. Trying to stay with the port-a-potty woman was equivalent to me running and all out sprint. I started to run again but then I just stopped. I crashed and burned. My hip-flexors were tight, my right shin was hurting, and the top of my left quad was burning.  With my hands on my knees, I looked up from the ground, looked at my watch (3:57), and started to walk.  The finish was in reasonable distance (yet still up hill) and I could start to  hear the people cheering at the finish line over the seering wind.

After crossing the finish line, I looked at my watch, it said 3:59:30. I was pretty happy with that, but I knew it wasn’t the real time. One thing I forgot to do before the race was to turn off the “auto stop/start” feature on my Garmin 305. This is a great feature when you are running in the city, and you have to stop at red lights and such. It lets you accurately judge your distance and time. But the clock doesn’t stop in a race. I can only guesstimate, but I’m assuming the watch stopped when I took of my fleece around mile 6 to give to the aid station volunteer, and when I stopped at aid stations. Overall, my time was 4:01:36. 5th in my age group. You gotta love small scale marathons.

Post race and Vegas

I got cold pretty quickly. I didn’t have the strength to put my running tights on but I did find my fleece. I brought my Rx4 recovery drink power and drank it rather quickly. I grabbed some bananas and got on the bus.

Later that night we had the awards ceremony. Chris finished at 3 hours 40 min (bastard!) and Ali came in at 4:15: Not too shabby for not hardly training for it. She was listed in the 30k time as 4:15, but had she registered for the marathon, she would have won her age group! I’m sure she’ll kick major booty in Ironman Canada in August.  I ended up having (lots of) beers with some folks from California. These were some serious runners and triathletes. I think we stayed in Furnace Creek Bar from about 7pm till 3! There’s no better recovery food than pub fare!

This was my first time in Vegas. Not sure what I expected but it’s a pretty cool city. Since the old saying goes “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” I’ll leave it as so. But, I will say is that I saw Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian (a must see!!), and flew out down only $40 bucks!