The Quest for Shirts

Race season is officially upon us and I'm pretty hell bent on collecting as many race shirts as possible as long as it doesn't put my personal health at risk, or enact my overdraft protection. This year is a first for me as I'm not traveling for work and I am actually able to come up with a race schedule and proper training plan. Since I started the whole physical fitness thing I've never been able to plan more than a few weeks in advance so this year looks to be a nice change, and as results suggest so far, it appears to be a positive change. A little more than a month ago I ran my first half marathon in Xenia, and had registered for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon last weekend which was sponsored by Dick's Sporting Goods. Can't the government step in at some point and make them change their name to Bill's or something? Anything but Dick's! What, was Cox Sporting Goods already taken? How about Peter's? I have to assume at some point they've had those odd commercials with interviews of customers who say 'We love Dick's, we buy all our stuff here,' or 'Dick's are the best, we can't get enough,' or perhaps 'Coming inside a Dick's store during a sale is great, I always get more than I bargained for!' It must be great to work in the PR department of Dick's Sporting Goods. Here's a sample conversation for a hypothetical employee:

Person 1- Hey Bill, long time no see. What are you doing now-a-days?

Person 2- Wow, Tony! What are you doing at Chick-Fil-A? I'm doing good thanks. I work in the PR department at Dick's Sporting Goods.

P1- That's great, so you tell everyone how great Dick's are?

P2- Wow, that's pretty fucking original. I've never heard that one before you homophobe. I hope you choke on your Chick-Fil-A, you asshole.

P1- Hey, don't take out your anger on me cause you love Dick's man. How are the wife and kids doing?

P2- Actually, I got divorced cause my wife was cheating on me. Somehow she got custody of the kids too. Didn't you already know that? That happened a while ago.

P1- Yeah, I did. I just wanted to bring it up again. Take care man, good luck in spreading the word about Dick's!

p2- (collapses to the floor crying)

The moral of the story is everyone at the race had a black sack that said Dick's real big on it, awesome. The day before the race was one of the longest few hours of my life though as we had gotten to Pitt early so we could pick up our race packets, and had a lot of time to waste throughout the day before needing to go to bed to get some proper pre-race sleep. I stayed with a high school friend who luckily lives near 3000 bars, and since I was fully prepared to bust ass the following morning while running 13.1 miles, I had no intention of drinking. Another great thing was that it was damn near perfect drinking weather and the Kentucky Derby was on, as well as Bull-Celtics game 7. To top it off, one of my friend's buddies showed up and at one point offered us $100 to drink with him. These are the moments when you decide how serious of a racer you are. It was by far the longest amount of time I've ever spent at a bar without drinking. The old me would have caved for $20, but I held strong and only ended up having 2 beers at our mega-dinner at Buca diBeppo, which I was fine with. Beer has carbs, and carbs are good for endurance events.

Waking up for a 7am start didn't prove too difficult and we were at the event in plenty of time to check a bag/warm-up/etc. The race had around 10,000 entrants, so it was by far the biggest race I've ever participated in which was cool. The race had a good vibe too, the city hadn't had one for the previous 5 years so it was the big return, and the city seemed fairly excited to have it. My goal was to start out faster than I had at Xenia, then cruise from there, my main goal was to break into the 1:30's and finish in the top 20% of the half marathon field. They had pace groups which I'd never seen either so I got near one of those with the expectation of hanging it with for a while before speeding up. At race start I was feeling good and ready to put in a good effort, the weather was perfect, nice and cool, overcast with no sun. Mile 1 was 7:33 (roughly 45 seconds faster than mile 1 at Xenia), mile 2 was 7:38 (about 20 seconds faster), then mile 3 was 7:05 (about 40 seconds faster), so after 3 miles I was 1:45 ahead of my previous best. This was far faster than I was hoping but was still feeling good and breathing alright. I jobbed out miles 4-7 in good time 7:18, 7:23, 7:24, 7:27, really consistant, over halfway home and looking good. Total time to mile 7, 52:32. Mile 8 went through a neighborhood with a few hills and I started to feel fatigue set it, the plan was to take my energy gel at the end of mile 8 anyway so this seemed fine, to take the gel I had to slow a bit which produced the slowest mile of the race @ 7:48. Mile 9 was 7:30, then mile 10 I crashed, going out so fast had taken it's toll and I was starting to feel it, the gel didn't prove to be much help. But, while I felt terrible and thought I was going slow, the watch said otherwise, mile 10 in 7:42, not too bad. At this point I was really struggling and the finish line couldn't come soon enough, I was convinced I did mile 11 in 8:30, Mr. Ironman watch corrected me, 7:48. I also felt slow because a few people started passing me, which I hate. More pain and suffering in mile 12, 7:37, 1.1 to go, feet don't fail me now. Normally, I'd kick pretty good the last mile (@ Xenia mile 13 was my fastest mile @ 7:18), here...no such luck. Some dbag little kid passed me at some point and I was about ready to punch him, there's no way this punk had run the previous 12 miles! Mile 13 was 7:46, then I sprinted the last tenth in 45.74 seconds. Total time- 1:38:49. I was pretty wrecked after the race but was happy with the good PR. The results proved odd though, at Xenia (which apparently is one of the most competitive races in the country) I ran 2 minutes slower than this time and finished in the top 21% of half marathoners. Here, out of 4105 1/2er's I was 182nd, top 4.43%! Strange, must not have been a very competitive field, but I'll take it! Out of 1675 men, I was 145th (top 8.66%). And age group, I was 19 out of 275, for top 6.91%.

Overall, the race was fun....hard, but fun. The course was good, and I think it sets up to run a fast time. The event was very well organized and I would encourage anyone to do it next year, I'm sure the race will only get bigger (if the organizers increase the field, they had to cap it this year cause so many people registered). And I'm definately super happy with the result. It was good to realize I felt so bad but still ran good times, that will help out big time in future races when I feel like crap. Really nice race shirt too! Shirt #2 of the season! I'll try to get out the epic tale of shirt #3 from yesterday in the upcoming week!