Crim III

If you can say one thing about me, I'm a "gamer."  In (what I consider) big races, where I really want to tear the course up, I show up.  Maybe I failed in practice last week, and neither of my 10 mile practice runs went particularly well or as planned.  Maybe I didn't do everything I had in mind to get ready for this race leading up to it.  Maybe I didn't even do particularly right by myself the night before either, but let me just say, "who really cares?"

I'd like to be perfect all the time, and there's no doubt in my mind I'm doing better, but things like "good night's sleep" and "complete race preparation" are just not in my repetoire.  However, there's also little doubt about the fact that the mere existence of the Crim has changed my life.  I may run half marathons, and I may run fulls in the future.  I don't know how far I'm willing to take this, because I haven't gotten to a point where I feel I can't do more, or even that I don't want to.  I also have no idea what life will throw at me in the future.  What I do know, is that no matter what other races I do, the Crim is my anchor baby of racing.  It's the reason for all of this running mess and keeps me a part of runner nation, and I'd like to think that, no matter what, even if I move, I'll find a way to do this one every year.

Going into this year, I had a game plan in my head, and not only for the race itself.   I had one for each individual mile, and, oh baby, did I execute.  I hit my mile marks pretty much to the exact mark for the first 3 miles; mile 1 being to the exact second of my desired 9:45 minute mark.  All this while talking to someone I haven't seen since High School for miles 2 and 3.  Mile 4 and 5 I was way under anticipated time, and the Boo-Radleys  were over before I knew it.  Mile 6, as expected, was a little rubbery and the slight uphill on Miller Rd isn't exactly the best recovery after the hills, but I allotted for a pretty slow mile there.  That didn't happen.  I think I ran a cool 9:15.

I started to over-think a bit, though, and I skipped a water stop along 6, thinking I was good and didn't want to lose time.  That led to a bit of slowing on 7 when that sun hit, and a little bit of worry that I was going to fade out completely.  Then, I got a water intervention.  A man with a short white beard, a blue button down shirt, and a big tan-colored hat to block the sun was giving out ice cold bottled waters in the middle of 7, and I took one with me.  Whoever you are, thank you for supporting me and all the runners.  You may have saved my Crim for me.

I carried that bottle and it carried me through the next quarter mile of struggle.  After fighting that off, I felt wonderful.  I decided to break for the end as hard as I could go, passing the guy I was talking to earlier, who had just now come back into sight (and must have pulled ahead at some point when I lost him).  I kept choosing targets ahead of me and eating them up.  Eventually I latched onto the man who came in 2nd for the 10 mile walk up ahead and tried to beat him.  I finished just behind him by 1 second on the clock.  I don't even understand how walking that fast is humanly possible.  Leon Jasionowski, I gotta hand it to you, you're pretty awesome.

My clock time was a 1:36:01, so the goal of breaking into the 1:30s was hit, and my loftier goal of hitting 1:36 was as well.  I knew that much at the finish line, which was easier on the mind than waiting for my chip time and biting my nails about whether I hit it or not.  That was pretty much my plan at the end anyway, when I hit mile 8 at 1:17ish (clock) and earlier the best we'd done was 1:20.  Besides, I've learned my lesson dealing with clocks, as I swear when I started the Legend it was at 17 minutes in, and I also swear we crossed the start of the Crim at about 3 minutes.  I never trusted digital clocks anyway, especially at 1:38 when they look like the pringles man.  Perhaps I went 2 minutes faster just because of a subconcious drive not to see him on the clock when I finished.

Admit it, you see it too. 
The eyebrows, the mustache, and the bowtie, it's all there.

I popped into Churchill's, who gave us a free beer (Michelob too, not the real cheap stuff), and Jason picked up his debit card that was left there from Thursday night (ha!).  That was chased by our free slice of pizza and a free MGD from the beer line, both of which you can get from your bib tabs.  Honestly, if you hang around where the runners are leaving, they'll hand you them asking if you want them.  You could probably get an entire pizza and a gallon of beer if you were even the slightest bit pesky about asking for them, and are a master of disguise.  The line usually gets too long for that business, though, especially when the 8k and 5k people start filing in.

Officially, I ran a 1:34:03, which is pretty much right in the middle for my gender and a little south of center for my age group.  I don't think there's much I could have done to be any better than that.  That's a 10 mile record for me (not that it's a common distance), beating the 1:38:28 at Solstice Run, and taking over 16 minutes off the 1:50:25 of last year's Crim.

No good race pictures yet.  My friend Ken didn't come down, my family mistook some guy in a white shirt and a hat for me, and my lady slept through her alarm, so no pre-race, during (action), or post-race photos from them.  So, unless the official guys came through enough for me to actually pay for one, all you get is Jason and I in the living room.  As an added bonus if you read this now, I'll throw in a shot of the medal, which has some nice detail on it.  You probably can't see, but it even says "Flint" and "Vehicle City" on the arches, just like downtown.

Living Room After Shot

Medal

Up Close

What the small print on the arch of the medal, that you can't read, because I don't have a nice macro lens like my soon-to-be-wife, is supposed to mimic.  Yes, I realize that was an awful "run-on" and way too long to be a picture caption.

Summer Solstice Run

Sometimes I wonder why I do this stuff.  Getting up at 5:00am just to drive an hour and go run 10 miles just sounds like a bad idea.  I could have stayed in bed until much later, and remain the lazy meat in a sandwich where the bread is my wife and cat.  Instead I woke up and hurdled my torso over Scully (the cat) and zombie walked to the shower and got ready for another run.

Even after the drive to Northville and all the moving around before the race, I was still yawning up until the start of the race.  I could have taken a nap right there on the Northville Downs track where we started.  Yes, we were all running a horse track for the start of the race.  After we got going, I was half-tempted to let out a whinney or two.  With it being a Hawaiian-themed race, I saw a couple women, and a few men (most notably the one in a coconut bra) in grass skirts.  There were a few Hawaiian shirts as well.  One guy had on both, and I recognized him, but didn't figure out until later that he was at the Flushing Evening race dressed as a bunch of grapes.

After the lap around the track, we headed out to the roads and hit a big hill immediately.  The entire race was up and down, and for 10 miles (at least for me) that can be pretty taxing.  It was definitely the hilliest race I've ever done, but the first hill was probably the toughest and it was nice to get that big one out of the way early.  After that we ducked into a nice suburban neighborhood where there were a few spectators at their houses watching us go by.  I heard another runner say, "No more 3 Musketeers for me mom, I'm a runner now."  I kind of wonder if it would have been any more amusing to me if I heard it in context, but probably not.  Besides, I'm more of a Milky Way guy.

There wasn't much else about the race to note, though.  It was nice and overcast, which made the race a lot easier than it would have been with the sun blasting down on us.  I didn't really battle anyone around me too much for any consistent amount of time, except for one run-walker who ended up pulling away from me at the end.  I hate when that happens.  I had a really tight calf and my hamstring kept acting like it wanted to pull on me, but I begged them back into good graces without having to stop and stretch (which I was heavily considering).  Other than that, I just took it slow and steady, fighting off the hills (both uphill and down) as I went.

I raced without music again for this one.  It just felt like one of those days that I wanted to go without it.  Other than the 3 Musketeers comment, there wasn't much said around me to hear, though.  I got a few courtesy "good jobs" and one "nice shirt" for my Team Zissou shirt (if only I had the Zissou Adidas), but other than that everyone was pretty quiet.  I blame the hills, and perhaps the early 7:30am start for that.  It just was not a very lively group out there.

I finished (at yet another Ford Field!..what the H?) with a 1:38:28, which is the first time I've been able to keep it under 10 minute pace for anything 10+ miles.  I was pretty happy with that, considering I was planning on dedicating the race to my running partner Jason for Running Buddy Appreciation Day, and I was out there pushing with him in mind while he was up north being considerate enough to have an artist at the Comic Con draw me an Ood.

I also got another medal for this one.  Between that and the Re-Tread plaque and the rest of the races, I'm afraid I'm becoming a bit of a "trinky whore."  Yes, I mean trinket, but we call them "Trinkies" thanks to one man's slip of the tongue when talking about engagement rings.  They had some good stuff after, but I only wanted water.  I may have considered some pizza if it wasn't ruined by pineapple and ham (stupid Hawaiian theme, although that abomination isn't even their fault)  They had some hula dancers and a lot of other good theme-related things after.  The organizers (Running Fit) really did a nice job.

Sweet Victory

I made it! I finished the 10 mile Crim run, and I did it in under 2 hours.

The Back-Story:

Tuesday Jason and I went out for our final practice run of the 10 mile out on the trail to avoid injury. That didn't seem to work very well, because in the final mile, my calf started to strain. I foolishly tried to run on it after it was yanking because we were having such a great go at it that day, and I made things worse in the final mile. From that point on, we both stopped running for the week until The Crim, and I put a lot of meds on my calf over the rest of the week.

The night before the race, I had $10 vouchers to see Blondie and Cheap Trick fall into my lap. I debated whether to go or stay home, rest up, watch "Run Fatboy Run," and hit the Olive Garden for the unlimited pasta bowl. You really just can't pass either of them up for 10 bucks and free parking, let alone both, so I went. The short version is Cheap Trick is still solid, and Deborah Harry is still awesome. Luckily they got done fairly early, and I was home and in bed at midnight.

I woke up at 5am the next morning. I showered, put Body Glide in all the necessary places, some icy hot on the calf, set the DVR for the Crim coverage, grabbed some toast and a banana, and charged up the mp3 player. Then I got my shirt, shorts, and shoes on and paced around for a bit before putting on my bib and D-tag.

Jason came over about 6:30 and we walked downtown to the starting line, as I finished a quick Power Bar. We hit the porta-johns (pre-race leak jitters), and watched the wheelers off at the start. Then they let the competitive runners, the 30+ year runners, and military runners go. I was doing a lot of jogging in place to loosen up the calf that felt like it could pull at any moment. There is a reason that I put it on my Colbert "On Notice" board on the fridge. We did some last minute stretching, and took our place behind the green flag for the 10 mile runners.

Immediately we were getting boxed in, and even worse there were walkers up in our section despite them being told several times that they are supposed to line up behind us at the purple flag. I've been over it several times, but here we go again. Walkers are just the bane of my running existence. Winning speed-walking is about the equivalent of winning at a game of online poker with no money involved. The sad thing is, these people cheat like crazy. One woman in particular I have seen at several runs, and she's ALWAYS cheating. The races without a starting block that takes your launch time, she'll take off with the runners, hiding in the crowd, and start walking after there is no crowd. At the Crim, she was running for part of it. I imagine this woman is queen bee of the super-bitches too and thinks she's the best thing since gravy cheese fries. Anyway, yeah, those f***ers got in our way again. Is it just competition bringing out the worst in them or are they just oblivious pricks? Speaking of pricks, I started up the mp3 player, and I just had to start up the race with a little K-Fed. I needed a funny distraction, and when I saw that, I had to play it. It worked for the first mile or so. Thanks "Pancake Man."

It did open up after the start, but not much. When you have nearly 10,000 people running, even a 10-mile span doesn't spread you out too much. My calf was already feeling tight in mile 1, and I was genuinely worried. I pleaded with it in my head, "Please don't do this to me, not today." Meanwhile, I looked at the timer for the first mile and it said a whopping 13 minutes and change (unbeknownst to me at the time, it was over 3 minutes before I got across the start). Mile 2 is where you start to get into the charm of the race. There were people lined down Third street, and the fraternities there were passing out donuts and beer to the runners. I didn't figure I should risk it this time, but maybe in the years to come, I'll partake in all of these station pit stops.

I started pushing through miles 3 and 4 by Mott Park (and grabbed my first water) to make up time, and a lot of people flocked to the woods there to take a public pee break. I was good, except for the calf (still). Then I hit the Bradley Hills, which is over 100' feet of elevation change in less than a mile. They're generally known to any area runner as "Where good Crim runs go to die," but I pushed through them, and grabbed a much-needed Gatorade boost at hill 2. Electrolytes are good, and by then my shirt, with our friend's physical therapy office on it, was soaked, so I'm sure I lost a little bit of what plants crave. I grabbed a water too just before mile 6 to wash the taste out and clear the mouth a bit.

At the split the time was saying 56:11, which I felt good about, and was only a little slower than my Blueberry time (in reality it was faster minus the 3 minutes, but you get it by now). The Bradleys did their thing to my legs though, and they were like rubber. I kept telling myself "keep going, keep going and it'll pass." It finally did, and I had a really quick mile 7 breaking past quite a few people that lost their sh*t at the hills. When I hit the middle of mile 8, I was starting to die though. My shirt was completely wet, the shorts were on their way, and I was really dehydrated. I hit 3 water stops in a 1 1/2 mile stretch at mile 8, 8 1/2, and at 9. I still haven't mastered the art of drinking and running at the same time. If I try it, I end up aspirating the water and coughing it out of my lungs for 1/8th of a mile. So I did have to stop, take a few steps, and immediately jump back in a few times. Maybe eventually I'll learn to do it while running like the pros, but it's not as easy as it looks.

Just before I made the turn at Saginaw St. for the final stretch, I flipped the player over to some Rocky IV soundtrack figuring it would help me let loose and finish strong. It did. At the turn, I started running faster, and halfway down the street I ended the race in a dead sprint (or as close as I could muster). I grabbed my 10-mile finisher medal (hell yes!) and Jason found me almost immediately after to tell me "good job." He was happy to see that I didn't finish too far behind him, and was able to go the whole way. We grabbed some waters, and each grabbed a popsicle, then another popsicle after eating those, then another water, then a banana, and then an apple. We ran into Ken and he snapped a picture of us on the bricks, which I have yet to see.

I look focused

Got it!

We went back to the gates and watched the other people come in, rooting them on like the crowds pushed us like a wind at our back, throughout the entire race. Those people help you so much when you feel down and out, and the volunteer stations keep us in business (big time). I almost got back in time for the 8K walk to be off, and walk with Jessi and her family, but I didn't make it. So I waited for them for an hour and a half to see them cross. Somehow I missed every one of them, and waited until it just wasn't possible for them to still be lagging behind (in fact they all were pretty quick). Jason and I gave up and grabbed our much-deserved free pizza and beer, and walked back to my place.

I called Jessi, and she was on her way to the grandparents. Jason and I went over there too, and they welcomed him and fed him, as I introduced him as my friend and trainer. They're so nice, and they always end up feeding somebody's stray it seems. Every holiday, there's somebody's friend there for some reason, and they always take them in like family, which is really admirable. We all shared our Crim stories at the table, and it was really great to get some food in after all of that.

I'm still in disbelief that this happened, and I'm still shocked I finished under 2 hours and my calf never pulled (the realistic goal was under 2:30:00 and optimistically I was hoping for 2:00:00 or under). I've taken it off notice, officially. The official time came in at 1:50:25, which is just over 11 minute miles. I'm good with that. The Blueberry race was 55:44 and it was half the Crim, so I did my job and kept that pace. Now it's time to start going for times the rest of this year. I won't be adding distance. Maybe next year we'll consider some half-marathons and maybe even a marathon, but for now I want to break that 10 minute mile wall. For now, I'm just reveling in my accomplishment, because I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to do this until this month. Maybe I should stop limiting myself.