Race Recap: Beat the Blerch Virtual Half Marathon

Beat the Blerch Virtual Half Marathon 10/19/21 Cedar Falls, IA

Weather: 70 degrees, sunny

Terrain: Recreation trails and some sidewalks

Distance: 13.1 miles

Course map

It's been a long time (a year!) since I was a regular runner. I've done plenty of hiking and OCR stuff, but running, not so much. But having always been the type of person to say "why not" to a ridiculous physical challenge, I set out on a gorgeous autumn Tuesday to complete this year's Beat the Blerch virtual race. This time I would do a half marathon, using the same course that I ran last year for my Des Moines virtual half, only backwards (the course being reversed, not me literally running BACKWARDS).

I started heading east from Gateway Park, unsure of what my pacing would be. I decided to jog until I thought I should walk, and I made it 90 seconds. Then I decided to walk 90 seconds, then jog again. I kept up this totally impromptu pacing strategy until, I figured, I would grow too exhausted to continue. I felt unstoppable as I weaved my way through George Wyth state park's hard trails. Dropped by the campground to use the bathroom only to discover that it had closed for the winter the day before. Off to another bathroom. I was basically improvising at this point but it didn't take me too far off course. Continued east all the way to the creepy neighborhood in Waterloo, which was far less creepy today. Turns out sunny weather really helps the "yikes" factor. Plus my pace was fantastic - sub-12-minute miles, and feeling easy. I could possibly PR today!

Although the sun was beating down, I wasn't feeling terribly overheated, since there was a lovely breeze. Headed past the Cattle Congress fairgrounds, then made my way downhill into Hartman Reserve county park on the south side of the river. At this point I was around mile 9 and was starting to feel pretty tired. I had just run out of Gatorade Zero and had to switch to water. I think that's where the trouble began. Tried to maintain my 90/90 ratio but my runs started getting shorter. Down to 60/120. I hit Pfeiffer Park at around mile 11 and felt so tired. I was in survival mode and just trying to jog as much as possible. My PR dreams were absolutely dead but I wanted to see if I could get a sub-2:40 half marathon through pure, unfiltered GRIT. 

Looped through Washington Park and was basically the walking dead, but still gave ugly jogging a good go every few minutes. I realized I could cut through downtown and stop by the running store to pick up my CVAST member t-shirt, which I'd not picked up for 8 months (oops). So I continued my walking/hideous jogging until I got to the running store at mile 12.9. Stopped in and got my shirt. I did stop my watch at this point, full disclosure. But I resumed the workout and continued the few blocks back to Gateway for exactly 13.11 miles on my Garmin. And my time? 2:39:40. My third best half marathon time EVER. With no run training. Main takeaway: my indoor training on the mini stepper and climber lately must have MAJOR cross-training value. This is a great omen for my at-home winter training!

Legend in my own living room

Pros:

-Virtual kit. The shirt and medal are amazing (go to my Instagram to see pictures of the swag included).

-Weather. I picked the last gorgeous day of the year, I think.

-Course. I just really enjoy having such a flawless loop. Mostly flat, perfect distance, a couple bathrooms along the way. Who could ask for more?

Cons:

-Fueling. Next time I will bring TWO bottles of Gatorade Zero, instead of one plus water.

-Man, if I hadn't bonked so hard, I could have PRed, LOL.

Race Grade: A. An amazing effort. The kind of workout that takes you to another level.

Jumping to Age Group

Well, it was bound to happen eventually. My buddy Wes has talked me into attempting...AGE GROUP. This is a competitive division with strict rules. Racers must complete all obstacles without assistance and perfectly according to the rules for each obstacle, or do all penalty burpees. Normally, I would avoid Age Group like the plague, since I prefer to have the option to get a boost on certain things, or if I'm in dire straights to modify the burpees or do a different penalty entirely. 

But Wes made the excellent point that, in a Stadion race, there are only 15 penalty burpees per failure. I am also capable of running a clean Stadion, and did so at Wrigley in 2019. The obstacles are within my comfort zone and I don't require boosts. Hence, I have signed up for the Age Group division at the Notre Dame Stadion on July 9, 2022.

Before that day, I have some work to do. I refuse to show up and just wing it. I want to actually do something decent out there. I don't want to embarrass myself. Back in 2012 I did a competitive walking division wherein I came in second place, missing out on winning by less than one second, because of an amazing finishing kick on my part. So I know that I have a competitive side that can come out. My goal for this race is to finish in the middle of the pack for my age group. 

Since every Stadion race is different, I analyzed the data from the last one I did (Wrigley). My fastest lap there was 1:03:51. This was by far my Stadion PR, and I failed one obstacle (spear throw) on that lap (it was my second lap, run more slowly and with a friend, that I ran clean). I completed in that time with minimal jogging, but a general effort to "hustle" a bit more than I usually do. I also had done very little stair training in advance of it. All this to say, there is a LOT of room to make gains in my time.

Which is good, because I looked up the results for the Female 35-39 Age Group for that same race. Podium spots were run in 41:09 to 42:44 (yes, fat chance of that, but it's good to know what winning times are). Middle of the 19-person division would require a time of about 50:30. Which means I have to shave about 23 minutes off my Stadion PR to make that goal happen.

With this information, I can begin to look at individual areas of improvement. I have pinpointed several, and estimated very approximately how much time I could save with each one.

1) Clean race OR fast burpees - 2 minutes

2) Great stair training/climbing - 5 minutes

3) Jogging (or god forbid RUNNING) the whole thing - 10 minutes

4) Improved flow in/out of obstacles - 3 minutes

5) Speed on obstacles themselves - 3 minutes

6) Skip aid stations entirely - 1 minute

7) Improve low crawl (flats AND stairs) - 2 minutes

So if I manage to optimize every single area, I could conceivably "run Wrigley" in 38 minutes. That would have absolutely destroyed my age group, so this is all highly optimistic and approximate, but it lays out a solid 7-point plan for training for Notre Dame. I will be training stairs on a weekly basis. I will be getting my running back to where it was in the summer of 2020 when I was jogging a lot. I will get my obstacle proficiency even better and improve my cardio so that I can enter and exit obstacles at a run without a problem. I'll get my weight down to my absolute ideal.

I have plenty of time and lots of motivation. This is happening, dammit. This Is Stadion Age Group. (New vlog series coming soon, LOL)