Pacing Colleen

I wasn't sure if I'd write a blog post about this but I decided it might be worth it.  Here is Colleen's post about the race.

Colleen ran an ultramarathon yesterday.  It was a 50K (31.1 miles) around the 5 mile loop at North Park.  I've heard other people complain about how it can be boring to run a lot of loops like that, but one advantage is being able to stop at your car every so often.  To de-layer clothes, pick up water, etc.

Colleen had two pacers for this race- Sarah and myself.  We're part of the group of 6 that has run together at North Park in the past.  There's a picture of the 6 of us in this post.  Originally one of the guys was going to run 20 miles of the 31 to prep for the Pittsburgh marathon but he ended up not being able to do it.  Sarah was an addition towards the last minute.  I was originally going to run laps 4 and 5- I figured that if we got her 5 loops and 5 miles away, the last 5 would be easy for her on adrenaline and being excited about finishing.  But Sarah was going to run laps 3 and 4, so I asked Colleen if she'd rather I do 5 and 6.  I also originally was going to take pictures at the end for her and just sit around the cars for the last lap, but told her if I ran the last lap I didn't think I'd be able to run ahead, grab a camera, and take pictures.

So that's what I did, ended up running laps 5 and 6.

Colleen killed the first 4 laps.  She ran the first 3 laps, I think (plus the 1.1 at the very beginning before starting the actual loop/lap) without walking other than to get water at water stops.  She texted me around 16 miles and I realized I needed to get moving or I was going to miss meeting her for the 5th lap because she was ahead of what she projected.

I rushed around and barely got there in time.  I think I passed them in the car about half a mile before the boathouse/parking lot.  I ran into the bathroom and as I came out of the bathroom, I already saw Sarah and thought I had missed Colleen.  But she paused at her car so I headed to meet her there.  She had also given me her water belt to bring and I handed that off to her- it was all ice because I pulled it out of the freezer just before getting in the car.

We started out and my first thoughts the first mile were, crap.  I don't think I'm going to be able to do 2 whole loops here.  That's 10 miles.  My plan called for 9 miles, and the most I've ever run so far is 8 miles.

But Colleen had hit a wall about a mile before we met up and I took over for Sarah.  So she was starting to slow down.  If I'd try to do loops 3 and 4, I don't think I would have lasted the entire time.  Props to Sarah for that!

It took a little bit for me to get situated.  Usually when I run with Colleen, she can smoke me easily and I'm the one dragging while she's pushing.  I could tell she was tired- she was running straight but kind of loose and we bumped into each other a few times.  I was running too close to her for how much she had run and how tired she was.  I felt really bad about that too- I was there to help her, not to screw her up!  But I adjusted and tried to run a little further apart than we normally do.

We did a run/walk combo on that loop and it worked out so that we walked most of the hills.   Colleen said that every loop the hills just seemed worse and worse.  I still don't know how she did that over and over 6 times.

There weren't many racers and everything was open- roads, path, etc. to the public.  I tried to be a good pacer but I could have probably been better.  I wanted to distract her by talking about things, but I don't normally really talk when I run, not to mention I'm not really good at monologues.  I asked her questions a few times and I knew she was struggling to get words out so I decided not talking was probably better than asking questions.  I ended up just pointing out people/clothes, etc.  I figured that was better than nothing and got us looking around instead of thinking about how far we were running.

After the 5th loop (my first loop) we saw Sarah waiting.  Colleen had asked me to take two of the water bottles from her belt to fill at the water station, so I cut through the parking lot instead of around it and sped up so I wasn't holding her up trying to get her water.  I waved at Sarah and Colleen handed Sarah her car key so Sarah could grab her camera and take some pictures at the end.  Even with that, Colleen caught up before I could even fill the water bottles.  But she wanted to pause to dump water on her head and drink some gatorade.  One of the guys standing there helped me with the water bottles and stuff.  Poor Colleen, I'm a terrible helper!  She had a gatorade in her hand and I just handed her the water bottle to put it back, and she couldn't get it in there with one hand. The guy helping her actually was the one who put the water bottle in.  Now I know how to be better for next time!

I'm glad I ended up pacing her for the 6th loop. I could tell it was a real struggle.  I tried to pump her up, she had done such a good job and she needed to know it to get that final push through to the end!  We walked quite a bit more on that loop but kept doing the walk/run.  I think most of the time when we ran, I was slightly ahead of her trying to encourage her a little bit. Also, because I was so focused on doing what I could to encourage her, I didn't even really notice going around the loop and how many miles I'd done overall.  That made my long run much easier.

The last mile she started to push it again, and I think we ended up running most of the last mile.  We got to the parking lot and I started telling her, "See, we've done this just as extra laps to add on an extra .1 mile, you can do this!"  And when we got to where Sarah was taking pictures, I dropped back and walked and watched her cross the finish line.

Just before the finish line.
Photo Credit: Sarah

I know it wasn't my race but it made me smile all goofy for her.  I knew how much that took for her, especially mentally, and I was so proud of her!  She did this coming off a knee injury, without doing the recommended training (which I personally think is crazy but wow she did it), and with only one marathon under her belt.  She beat her 20 mile race time from a few weeks ago (at the 20 mile point of this race), and her marathon time from last October as well.  She really killed it for this race.  I think her finishing time for 31.1 miles (and her Garmin actually measured a little longer) was around 5:20.

One other thing about the race- wow was it HOT for March.  When I got in my car to drive away it said it was 78 out!!!  One mile in and I could feel sweat dripping down my face.  I knew it was going to be bad.  And at the end I was covered in salt.  My face, my arms, and my legs.  It looked like I had really dry skin but nope, just salt all over.  The shower felt SO GOOD when I got home.

So here are the mile splits for when I ran with her.  I did run .32 miles after she finished to get an even 10 miles in and averaged an 8:58 mile pace for that.  The slow mile 6 wasn't actually with her completely.  I cut off .5 miles of the loop to make sure I'd be strong the whole 2nd loop, and was standing around waiting for her.  During that I actually walked back towards her a little bit to catch her a little earlier, and was moving to get out of the way for other runners and bikers while straining to see her run around the corner.  My watch has auto pause on it, and it kept pausing and resuming as I was doing that.  So that mile (mile 6) is a bit skewed, time wise and we actually ran it shorter than it says.

1	09:53	09:53
2	10:29	20:22
3	10:21	30:43
4	10:11	40:54
5	10:57	51:52
6	11:48	1:03:40
7	11:14	1:14:54
8	11:18	1:26:12
9	11:19	1:37:31
9.69	06:40	1:44:10

The average pace was 10:45.  Considering in the past for 5 miles our average pace has been 10:17, that's not bad at all, especially based on the fact that Colleen had already run 21 miles before I started running with her.

Good job, Colleen!  You did an amazing job!

Colleen and the pacers
Photo Credit: RL