Lower Potomac River Marathon Archives - Lindsey Hein

Getting itchy

OutForARunAdmin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:27:00 +0000

I’ve been a terrible blogger lately. I think it has been 3-4 months since I last posted.

After putting so much time and energy into Piney Point, once it was over I was left with a sort of empty feeling when it came to running. I had no desire or push to focus on anything.

Enter the sport of Triathlon! I hit triathlons hard over the summer. Completing two sprints, one Olympic and soon to be Half Ironman in Miami next week. I feel ready for Miami…I have put the work and feel confident it will show race day…but that topic is probably worth a separate blog. I’ll just say for the time being…I’m hooked and committed to the lifestyle of Triathlon.

Even as the pinnacle for the summer/fall of 2011 is rapidly approaching in 10 days I can not help but let my mind wonder back to the marathon…the first love. I think it was probably watching the Chicago Marathon as spectators the other weekend that got my mind flowing again. Lindsey has been slowing building back up the competitive juices for a running race and I think that I am ready to commit again.

I have been eying the Bi-Lo Myrtle Beach Marathon as our A race for the first half of 2012. We talked about Houston but missed the sign up boat. That is too bad because the Olympic Trials are taking place the same weekend so that would have been super sweet!

We will see how everything goes after Miami…but I am energized by seeing a new challenge on the horizon.

2:55:00…here I come. I can feel it.

Glenn

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Long awaited race review and random thoughts

OutForARunAdmin — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:34:00 +0000

3:10:59

For the last year that has been my quiet obsession.

Any male marathoner under the age of 35 knows that time or any marathoner for that matter knows their time.

To consider myself a Boston Qualified runner would probably be a false statement. My running career mainly began as a way to lose weight heading into my senior year of college. Like any good male college student I lived on diet of beer and 3:00 AM pizza for about 3 years and it was starting to show. Around that same time, Lindsey and I began dating and she was a “real” runner so she convinced me to run my first race in September of 2006, The Hoosiers Outrun Cancer 5K in Bloomington. I’ll never forget this but with about .3 miles to go I decided it was too hard and needed to walk a little…man what a difference 5 years of work can make. I stumbled to finish line in about 24 minutes or so and have been running ever since. First the 5K, then give a half a shot and why not a marathon while we are at it. Flash forward five years and I am staring at something I never thought possible…am I fast enough to run a 3:10:59?!?!?!

For the last year, ever since I finished the Green Bay Marathon in May 2010 in 3:19 a month after running 3:24 in St. Louis, the time of 3:10:59 was my driving force. It was constantly there pushing me, driving me to push that tempo run, shave 5 seconds off that 3rd mile repeat, go out in 5 degree weather with six inches of snow to get my miles. It gave me focus, purpose and something to run towards.

Now as I toed the line, literally toed the start line in Piney Point because it was me and about 149 other people running in rural Maryland, 26.2 miles at a pace of 7:17 or greater was all that stood between me and a marathon runner’s ultimate goal, being fast enough to qualify for Boston. I was ready for the race. I had put my work in over the long hard, icy Indianapolis winter. I was confident that I could hit my time…it was now only a matter of doing it.

The first half of the race was rather uneventful in my opinion. I had trained to hit a time around 3:07 and some change so I went out feeling good in 6:50-7:00 miles for first half. I was at 1:31 half way. This was a situation that I had found myself in before…so that slight doubt crept in. Can I hold my pace to hit the time? I quickly killed the doubt because I think the thing that was different now then in the past was that I am a better runner at this point. Previously a 1:31 half would have killed me on the second half but not today. My work had been put in on the front end I knew I could hit it.

Miles 13-17 went by uneventful just like the first half and then the course started to roll. The map on website described 17-24 as “Batman’s Mask” and it most certainly lived up to that. Up and down for seven miles after the half way point was not fun. The hills were never too steep but just long enough to let you know they are there. At this point in the race after the hills, I am just cruising along probably around 7:15 or 7:20 per mile comfortable in the fact after doing the math compulsively for half the race that I would BQ and then I turned the corner for the finish line and saw the clock!

For some back story, the Boston Athletic Association announced in February that they were going to change the qualifying process for the 2012 race and then change the standards for 2013. This was in light of the fact that the 2011 race filled in about seven hours!! When Lindsey ran Boston in 2009, I signed her up after the first of the year…so things had changed greatly in two years. The BAA had decided for 2012 to allow the fastest people, adjusted for their qualifying needs, to have the most time to register.

So what this meant for me in Piney Point as I turned the corner and saw the official race clock was that I had about 70 seconds to run 400 meters to the finish and hit that final wave of early registrants. If not, I would be relegated to the second week of registering where who knows what would happen?!?!?! I quickly did the math and put the hammer down as much as anyone can after 26.1 miles and hit the tape in what I thought was 3:05:00 on the nose. But I wasn’t sure because as I stated before this was the smallest marathon that we have ran and there were no timing chips so my official time was dependent on that race official that clocked me as I crossed the line. After gathering myself and drinking some water I hoppled over and asked “what you get me at” and the race official replied “3:05:00”. I made it, literally with no time to spare! My goal going into the Piney Point was to qualify but to be able to qualify with that little extra cushion was even sweeter!!

Now as I sit back and reflect post race I am kind of left with an empty now what sort of feeling. What do I do now? I’m not quite sure. I don’t have the biggest desire to race another marathon anytime soon unlike last summer…maybe I’ll race a half or focus on biking. One thing I know for sure is that you will see Lindsey and I lining up in Hopkington, MA on Patriots’ 2012 to enjoy the party!

2:59:59….maybe that is the new goal but who knows when…I am going to enjoy the 3:05:00 for a while.

-Glenn

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Lower Potomac River Marathon RR

OutForARunAdmin — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 23:40:00 +0000

We made it to Piney Point!

At packet pick up, we were kind of thinking… what have we gotten ourselves into? It was basically a table set up with three ladies who handed us our bibs and t-shirts and expressed no interest in us being there. Hi, thanks for the bib, bye, was pretty much the extent of the conversation.

We head over to our hotel which ended up being an extended stay. It was kind of creepy, off to the side of this industrial road. When we walked in, nobody was at the desk, and it was eerily quiet. Finally this girl comes around the corner to check us in. She talked in a really soft voice and had a strange presence about her. She was doing the creep. I went straight to the bed and checked out the sheets to make sure everything looked clean. I’m not saying that means they were clean, but it made me feel better.

Glenn offered to take me down the road to a Marriott we saw that wasn’t full, but we would have lost our money on the extended stay, so I sucked it up and we stayed at the creeptastic hotel. One more mention to the creepiness of this place – there were several vacant looking rooms on the third floor and the curtains were pulled back all funny like it was an abandoned building. Overall creepiness factor of this place was 8 out of 10.

On to race morning- we showed up at 6:50 for the 7:15 start time. Since it was such a small race everyone just lined up and the race director said Ready, Set, Go. Glenn made sure to head to the front of the line, since he was trying to qualify for Boston – and although this course is a Boston certified course, there were no chips! So, he couldn’t afford to lose any seconds, in case he qualified right on the dot. We get to the line – hug, kiss and we are off.

We knew going in to the race there was at least one out and back section that we would see each other, but did not realize there would actually be three- at miles 5, 10 and 19. Here are our the 2 second passing recaps:

Mile 5 – We feeling good and I made sure to run over and high five- I don’t think he was really feeling that, but I made him do it.

Mile 10 – We asked how each other were feeling – he says good, I say ok. He tells me I’m in 2^ndplace for the women by a lot. Of course I realize this, and I feel a little frustrated because knowing I have a chance to place I start feeling pressure to try and hold it. Let’s be real here – 2^nd place a mile ten doesn’t mean you’ve got anything in the bag.

Mile 19 – Technically this was more like 18 for me 19.5 for him. We look at each other in obvious pain. I am on a downhill, getting close to the turn-around point and he is climbing the same hill I am going down, on the other side of the street. Now I’m focused on the fact that in about 10 minutes I am going to have to run by butt up that hill, he is so painfully climbing.

Needless to say those three points of the race were the most fun, as we were able to give a little support to each other, and although that was a big race highlight in my book- the most important part of my race happened at mile 10. This is when I started running with a guy that had gradually caught up to me. We started chatting a bit and he asked me what pace I was going for. I tell him I’ve trained for a 3:30 and would really like to break that, but have had a hectic two weeks, so I’m just seeing what happens. He tells me, “Oh you are way on to break that”. I tell him, I kind of guessed that, but I’ve been here before at mile 10. There is a lot of running left.

Glenn likes to joke and say I have marathon affairs with other guys, because I usually end up running with a random guy in races. He is openly fake jealous about this. So about this particular marathon affair – this guy is a very experienced marathon runner, he has done over 25. His PR is 3 hours flat, but for this race, like me he is going for a 3:30. Naturally we decide to stay together. I tell him I am hoping to chill at this pace until about mile 15 and start picking it up. He tells me not to, thinks I will bomb later on in the race if I pick it up that early. I think it through and decide I am going to trust this guy.

I decided not to wear a watch for this race (no watch, no ipod, no distractions). The only clock on the course was at the ½ marathon. I am usually very good at guessing my pace, andI had an idea how fast we were going. At the ½ marathon we were at 1:40 and some change, which was a good sign… on for a 3:20 if we didn’t lose any speed. I have not however, EVER run a negative marathon split. The closest I have ever come was in St. Louis last year when I ran a 3:34, and even then I was 13 minutes off from a negative split. So, although I felt pretty darn good, I didn’t see it being hopeful that I wouldn’t lose at least 5-10 minutes.

Over the course of the next 16 miles, we talked about marathons, Glenn, his girlfriend and kids and just running in general. This guy pretty much coaches me in for the last 16 miles. He tells me to relax down the hills and shorten my stride just a bit up the hills. (miles 12-24 had a decent amount of rolling hills, that were doable, but definitely challenging) More than anything though, he boosts my confidence, which is what I really needed.

Now I am focused and it’s the middle of the race. The 2^nd place situation is something I’m really thinking about. Miles 10-13 the girl in third was slowly gaining on me, and at 14 went on to pass. It discouraged me a bit, but as I was running behind her for quite a while, I realized her stride was looking labored. At mile 18, Steve looks at me as says “you’re going to beat that girl” I laugh it off and get more nervous. He tells me my stride looks great, and my breathing is on and it’s going to happen. Sure enough, we end up passing her at mile 19. She hung on for about a ½ mile, but soon fell off. What I didn’t expect though, was at mile 21 when the girl who had been chillin in 4^th place most of the race came cruising by us. Literally cruising. There was no hope for me keeping up with her, so we just tried to maintain pace and move ahead.

At this point, although my main goal of the day was to just break 3:30, I want 3^rd place. Let’s be honest, 3^rd feels a lot better than 4^th. Miles 21-26 were pretty darn painful. I think I told Steve I was thinking about crying on 4 different occasions during these miles, along with also telling him I thought I might pee my pants. He told me to go ahead and do that if I had too, after all there were showers at the end of the race. The good news is that I actually didn’t cry or pee my pants, but at least Steve was OK with it if I did.

As the mile markers crept by, it was getting pretty hot and I was in a mental battle to get my body to the finish line. I kept telling Steve to just get me to the next mile marker. At mile 24, he tells me I’m going to blow my PR out of the water, while also blowing that 3:30 goal out of the water. I’m thinking…. Look Steve, I don’t know… we’ve still got 2 miles left, I could crawl it in for all you know. I start reminding myself about how badly I was hurting in Chicago last year, which helped, because I knew for sure that no matter how bad I was felt… I DID NOT hurt that bad.

Once we cross mile 25, Steve sees a guy up ahead that looks like he may be in his age group and suggests we slowly creep up on him and pass, in case they are in the same age group so that he doesn’t miss out on an age group place. I tell him – “no way, can’t make that happen, but please go get him for yourself…. You helped me get here, and I will see you at the finish line very soon. Steve decides as long as he has 400 meters, he can catch this guy, so he’ll hang with me a big longer. Sure enough with 400 meters to go, he takes off and passes.

With a half mile left in the race, I know for sure I have third place locked in, which felt awesome. I turn the corner after the 26 mile marker to haul in the last 200 meters. Like always, there’s Glenn walking towards me to see my finish. There he is, holding up my Boston sweatshirt. I was so focused on getting my butt to the finish line; I realized I had briefly forgotten about my husband’s hard sought after goal. 1 second later it clicks… he’s holding up the Boston shirt to signify that he QUALIFIED!! As I’m gutting it out to finish I look back at him, yell “what was your time?!” He yells back “3:05”… holy crap he smashed the current Boston Qualifying standard by 5 minutes! I start screaming out of excitement – and forget about my pain for a second.

Twenty steps to go, I look up at the clock – turning over to 3:24. I can hardly believe it. There are two people who I want to bury in hugs– both Glenn and Steve. I run over to Glenn and celebrate our huge PRs and his first BQ. I am so excited for him, and can’t help but feeling a little selfish that I am almost (ALMOST) equally excited about my 3:24. Immediately after I hug Glenn… I have to go find my buddy who coached me to this PR. We hug, get a picture and I thank him 5,000 times for his encouragement.

I tell him he got me to the finish line in that time – and really believe he did. Although I clearly physically got myself there, one thing I know for sure is that without him, I might have had a new PR, but it certainly would not be 3:24. Two very important lessons in running– or achieving any goal was shown here. There is nothing that can replace the importance of having confidence in your abilities. There is also nothing that can replace the importance of boosting someone else’s confidence when they need it most. He made me believe that although I was hurting, I did not need to slow down and I could in fact destroy 3:30.

Oh Happy day – An amazing race for both of us, a quick pasta dinner with the other runners, the award ceremony – where indeed I grabbed the overall womens third place and received $100.00 in prize money, and my now Boston Qualified husband placed 2nd in his age group, with a 9th place overall finish. Not too shabby! Let me humble myself really quick though and mention that there were only around 160 runners in the whole race. =)

Pictures from our adventure!

Steve and I – it’s not often you run 16 miles with someone you’ve never met. Just one more reason runners are so weird.

We recognized this guy from a Runner’s World article last year. He is a Marathon Maniac – Literally. Very nice guy, runs about 80-100 miles a week.

Boston Bound!

Thank You for boosting my confidence Steve!

Bye Bye Piney Point!

We hop in the car, turn on the Decemberists and talk about the race for the next two hours. It’s a good thing we both love this so much, otherwise we would find our conversations completely annoying. And by the way, have you ever sat in a car for 12 hours after running a marathon? Talk about uncomfortable legs.

Next marathon cued up: Flying Pig – Sunday, May 1st.

And…. the Hein’s will be seeing everyone in Boston next year!

Happy Running!

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Road Trippin’ to the Lower Potomac

OutForARunAdmin — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:28:00 +0000

We are currently en route – road tripping it to Maryland to run the Lower Potomac River marathon on Sunday. Fortunately this marathon is close to D.C., so we will be making a pit stop to check out where Ericka works and go to dinner tonight.

We headed out after work yesterday at 6:00pm, God decided it was going to snow and we would have bad weather, so we stopped earlier than expected at 10:30 in Cambridge, OH. We got some much needed good sleep last night- I can’t even begin to tell you how much I needed a solid night of sleep. The past two weeks I have been averaging out at 4-5 hours, and I am very much a 7-9 hour kind of girl.

The road trip has consisted of –

1. One terrible stop to the worst Arby’s I’ve ever been to. We really only stopped there because I wanted some jalapeño poppers, turns out I don’t really know how to order at Arby’s and we ended up with these potato popper things that were not delicious. Another downside to the Arby’s stop was that my sandwich had an entire jar of mayonnaise on it, and naturally I was paranoid about getting food poisoning from the mayonnaise anyway, that I only ate ¼ of a sandwich. The last terrible part of the Arby’s experience was that I threw all the trash in the Arby’s bag and threw the bag in the back seat. We get into the hotel and Glenn’s pants and sweatshirt have ranch all over them. I guess I was sloppy with the trash bag.

2.1 texting truck driver (scary!)

3. 1 argument about how to drive

4. 1 discussion on awkward conversations with people you don’t want to talk – I tried to bring up a recent situation where this happened and Glenn blew someone off. I can’t put my finger on who it was and it’s driving me crazy!

5. Talk about the Ultra Red Eye Relay Team we are signing up for this summer

6. Talk about how our hamstrings are sore from doing active toe touch stretches – are you kidding me?! This better clear up before Sunday Morning.

7. Speculation on what to wear for the race on Sunday – race temp starts at 35 – ends at 55 and sunny….. hmmmm.

8. Drove through 6 states to get to where I will run a marathon in my 7th state, Glenn his 8th.

9. Listening to the “Decemberists” album about 10 times

10. Other albums included, matchbox 20 (which I got yelled at for), John Legend, RHCP, Garth Brooks, North Mississippi Allstars and Paulo Nutini

11. 6 bottles of water

12. 1 package of fruit snacks

13. 2 turkey subway sandwiches, 2 bags of garden salsa chips, ½ reeses fast break bar (I freaked out when I realized there were 460 calories in this thing, so I threw almost half out the window)

14. The most annoying Pilot Gas station in the world – I’ve never seen a place try to up sell so much in my life! – At subway – Do you want to make your 6 inch a foot long? Extra turkey? Extra cheese? Add bacon? Large drink? Add cookies? As if this wasn’t bad enough, when we went to check out for our bottled water and fast break – they tried to up sell us on another bottle of water and fast break.

15. Chilling memories from the Bike Trip back in September as we drove through the mountains. (No thanks, I do not wish to ride my bike down a 1500 ft. descent in the rain on a highway ever again! – I would be up for another bike trip though without the highways!)

16. AND…. How many hours did I spend on my phone facebooking and acting like I know how to twitter around? Probably 5.

Overall the road trip has been uneventful, but kind of fun. As we approach marathon day, I am feeling at ease. When we started training for this race the hope was for us both to PR. Glenn wants to run a 3:10 and I want to run a 3:30.

Due to the fact that I have lost some focus on training recently, since I started my new job on Friday and have been transitioning from the old job, I haven’t been sleeping/resting enough, or eating that great for that matter. (My stress eating has consisted of lot’s of Girl Scout cookies…..) I have decided to take the pressure off of trying to PR with a 3:30…..I haven’t let it go completely, but I have made it clear in my head that I am ok with just doing what my body tells me to do. This takes major pressure off, and who knows might make me run faster. I am A OK with just having a fun race though.

Race updates to come soon!

Current countdown to race: 21 hours.

Signing Off,

Lindsey

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Marathon weekend is here

OutForARunAdmin — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 21:34:00 +0000

Just like the title suggests the race weekend is here. We are leaving today after work to head east towards Washington D.C. I am excited to see how the race goes. We trained well for an extended period of time but then kind of got thrown off a little when the incredible Back on My Feet opportunity came along for Lindsey. How crazy and awesome that has been recently is probably worth another blog. But anyway for whatever reason my hamstrings have been extremely sore the last couple of days. I really noticed it yesterday when I went to do some of our active streching with Team HVAF on our wednesday morning run with Back on My Feet. When I touched my toes I thought “oh man that can’t be good”. I am only speculating here but I hit some core work pretty hard on Tuesday, sometimes I can’t help myself, and I think some of the moves I did put some extra strain on the glutes and hams and thus I am now sore three days before the race. But luckily it is three days before the race so I am confident that I will be ready come 7:15 Sunday….if not there will always be another race. So we’ll see how it goes. Okay heading out now to get home and hit the road. Hope to make it at least half way tonight.

-g

P.S. We have determined the culprit of the leg soreness! Based on talking to some other people at the BoMF runs this week it is the “active” toe touch stretches. Who would ever think that a stretch would do this? The legs feel better now but we will see tomorrow.

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