Seneca Creek Trail Marathon - March 6, 2010

On Saturday March 6th, 2010 I drove the 20 or so miles out to Riley's Lock in Seneca, MD for the Seneca Creek Trail Marathon & 50k. Finished in 5 hrs 39 min.

Running through Snowpocalypse/Snowmageddon - Winter 2009/10

Since starting school at Georgetown in 2004, I had successfully run and biked through 5 winters in Washington D.C. without much consternation... until the winter of 2009/10 arrived. On the night of Friday December 18th, the weather forecast was calling for a massive snowstorm of 18 inches or more starting after midnight and continuing all day on Saturday. Sure enough, come midnight the snow starting falling. Excited to go out in some fresh powder before it all melted, I laced up my running shoes that night around 3:00 a.m. and set out on a quick 6 miler out-and-back on MacArthur Blvd. There were a good 4 to 5 inches on the ground already. It was so much fun slip-sliding through the fresh powder. Turned out to be one of the most fun runs I can ever remember. Got cheers and honks from the many snowplow drivers - I felt like I was Rocky Balboa training for a prize fight through the streets of Philadelphia. Little did I know when I went to bed that night that this was not to be the last run through the snow this winter.

When I awoke on Saturday December 19th, the snow was NOT melted. Rather, the previous night's snowstorm had turned into a raging blizzard and more than a foot and a half of snow had already fallen. And of course I went out for a run.

Yates 30 miles in 30 days swim challenge - Oct 19-Nov 17, 2009

"The spirit to win and the will to excel is always measured one stroke at a time."
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Yates Field House at Georgetown University, a 30 miles in 30 days swim challenge was offered in the natatorium. I decided to give it a shot. The Yates lap pool has 8 lanes 25 yards in length and is 3.5 - 5 feet deep. One mile in the pool equals 1650 yards or 33 laps in this 25 yard pool. I would thus have to average 33 laps per day in order to swim the required 49,500 yards (990 laps), and I would also have to factor in a couple rest days before the Marine Corps Marathon I was running during the first week of the challenge. Here's my daily swim log:
Mon Oct 19, Day 1 - 1900 yds
Tues Oct 20, Day 2 - 1700 yds
Wed Oct 21, Day 3 - 1700 yds
Thurs Oct 22, Day 4 - 1000 yds
Fri Oct 23, Day 5 - 0
Sat Oct 24, Day 6 - 0
Sun Oct 25, Day 7 - 0 (Marine Corps Marathon)
Mon Oct 26, Day 8 - 1700 yds
Tues Oct 27, Day 9 - 1500 yds
Wed Oct 28, Day 10 - 1450 yds
Thurs Oct 29, Day 11 - 2200 yds
Fri Oct 30, Day 12 - 1800 yds
Sat Oct 31, Day 13 - 1250 yds
Sun Nov 1, Day 14 - 2100 yds
Mon Nov 2, Day 15 - 900 yds
Tues Nov 3, Day 16 - 3000 yds
Wed Nov 4, Day 17 - 1600 yds
Thurs Nov 5, Day 18 - 2000 yds
Fri Nov 6, Day 19 - 1500 yds
Sat Nov 7, Day 20 - 2000 yds
Sun Nov 8, Day 21 - 1750 yds
Mon Nov 9, Day 22 - 2000 yds
Tues Nov 10, Day 23 - 1600 yds
Wed Nov 11, Day 24 - 1800 yds
Thurs Nov 12, Day 25 - 1600 yds
Fri Nov 13, Day 26 - 1650 yds
Sat Nov 14, Day 27 - 2300 yds
Sun Nov 15, Day 28 - 2700 yds
Mon Nov 16, Day 29 - 2800 yds
Tues Nov 17, Day 30 - 2000 yds

So I made it 30 miles in 30 days. And I got a t-shirt that says as much. Chlorine is the only cologne I need.

Marine Corps Marathon - October 25, 2009

I ran my 3rd Marine Corps Marathon and 4th big city marathon on October 25th, 2009. I got to the start line in plenty of time this year and was able to meet up with the 3:10 pace group, who if I could manage to keep up with through to the finish would qualify me for Boston. The gun went off at 8:00 a.m. on schedule and I crossed the start line just a few seconds later feeling pretty well trained and confident that I could actually do it this year.

"The route starts in Arlington, VA, and winds its way through Rosslyn along Lee Highway before turning on Spout Run and the George Washington Parkway. After crossing the Key Bridge into Georgetown, runners turn toward the Palisades when the course follows Canal Road, up to the reservoir and down MacArthur Boulevard. The course guides runners down popular M Street in Georgetown. Runners will turn on Wisconsin Avenue and then K Street. The course passes the Kennedy Center and takes runners into Hains Point at approximately the halfway point of the race. Outside Potomac Park, runners pass the Jefferson Memorial before entering the National Mall and running by the Lincoln memorial, Washington Monument, and the U.S. Capitol. Runners continue along Jefferson Drive and then cross the 14th Street Bridge back into Virginia at mile 20. For the last 10K runners venture through Crystal City, pass the Pentagon, and charge the hill to the finish at the Marine Corps War Memorial."

The 3:10 pace group turned out to be a large group of maybe 60-70 runners or so who for the large part had similar hopes for the day as me. It was rather uncomfortable running on the heels of such a large group and always maintaining their subtle shifts in pace so by mile 5 or 6 I broke away and got a few hundred yards ahead of them. John and the parents were out to cheer me on when I came over the Key Bridge into Georgetown around mile 4 and again when I came down MacArthur Blvd past my new apartment around mile 8. I was feeling strong running down such familiar stomping ground but still had some doubt about my ability to maintain the current pace over the length of the course. The 3:10:59 time to qualify for Boston translates into 7:17 min/mile pace and 22:37 per 5k. My splits from the race are below:
5k - 22:35
10k - 22:34 (45:09)
15k - 22:24 (1:07:33)
20k - 21:56 (1:29:29)
25k - 22:21 (1:51:50)
30k - 22:49 (2:14:39)
35k - 25:59 (2:40:38)
40k - 28:07 (3:08:45)
42.195k - finished 3:20:25

As you can see, I was right on track through the 30k mark with a half marathon split of 1:34:22. Somewhere around mile 16 or 17 I started to slow up a little bit and the 3:10 pace group caught up to me. I ran with them for a while but they started pushing past me. I was determined to keep them in sight and catch back up as soon as I got a surge of energy. But that surge never came. I really don't even remember at what point I lost sight of the pace group, and it was definitely not a conscious decision to let them go. Looking back now I can clearly see that I ran out of energy about mile 19 or 20 and should have been getting more calories throughout the race so as not to have bonked so hard so close to the finish. I wound up fighting my way through the last few miles, ran up the final hill to cheers from the family, and crossed the finish line at the Iwo Jima Memorial at 3 hrs 20 min 25 sec in 740th place out of 21,405 finishers. I know it is a great feat to have run the 26.2 miles on this beautiful day in 3:20 but I was overwhelmingly disappointed that I didn't keep it together for the last few miles and finish just 9 min 26 sec faster. But I know there will be many more chances, such as next year's race on October 31, 2010.

Shenandoah National Park Bicycle Adventure - July 4th weekend, 2009

At 7:00 a.m. on Friday July 3rd, Sarah and I packed up our touring bikes with sleeping bags, a tent, and some food, and then set out on a biking expedition that I will not soon forget. We crossed the Key Bridge into Virginia and then took the Custis Trail 4 miles to the start of the W&OD trail in Shirlington. The W&OD trail is a 45 mile paved trail once occupied by the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad from 1859 to 1968. We busted our way down this mostly flat trail with only a brief stop for some Twizzlers at "The Stretching Post". The first 10-15 miles of this trail were rather crowded and had several street crossings that really slowed us down, but the last 15-20 miles were much more rural with few interruptions that allowed us to make it into Purcellville at the trail's end by lunchtime. A nice gentle-bicyclist-man that we rode the last few miles of the trail with directed us to the grocery store in town where we got some sandwich material and fluids for the water bottles that were rapidly being emptied on such a hot and humid weekend.
We spent the better part of that afternoon biking about 40 miles of rural Virginia roads from Purcellville into Front Royal, the entrance to Shenandoah National Park. Highlights of the ride included an alpaca farm, buying ice cream sandwiches at a gas station we passed, and playing "I'm biking to Shenandoah and I'm bringing Apples, a Bandana, Cherry Chapstick, ... Fish of the swedish variety, Jokes to tell, a Kite to fly, Lovely Lipstick," and on and on." When we got to the entrance station of Shenandoah National Park at Skyline Drive, we were denied access to camping because we did not have a backcountry camping permit and did not have locks for our bikes. So we wound up biking a couple miles down the road to an RV campground where we were allowed to pitch our tent for the night. The campground turned out to be awesome as they had showers, miniature golf, trash cans for empty beer bottles, and black bears! We had to tie our food up in the tree at night so as not to attract bears but it turned out not to matter much as bears were trolling around the campground throughout the day regardless.

On day 2 of our adventure, we left all our gear at the campground and rode our bikes sans heavy gear back to the beginning of Skyline Drive at the entrance to Shenandoah Park. Skyline Drive runs 105 miles north-south along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains and is the only public road in Shenandoah National Park. This road traverses up and down 3,500 feet tall mountains and has numerous white-tail deer and black bears that occasionally wander onto it. It turned out to be a great day of riding with incredible ups-and-downs and beautiful scenic views. Literally, the first 8 miles were straight uphill without rest, immediately followed by an amazing downhill journey with dangerously fast speeds. We took a rest at the Elkwallow campground, very popular among the cyclists in the park. We met an awesome old guy with jacked legs who was riding a single speed through the park - I don't know how he was making it up the mountains without gears - and Sarah got a picture with him that turned out to be a Facebook profile pic for quite a while. Sarah is quite the beast on the bike and I'm not quite sure how far she made it out Skyline Drive that day before turning around, but I made it to the 34 mile marker before I decided that I had better turn around for fear of not making it all the way back to the campground before dark/death. There were fireworks that raged late into the night that night for the 4th of July while we tried to sleep in the tent before the 90 mile journey home the next day.

Expedition day 3 found us packing up our bikes and getting on the road by about 8:30 a.m. I was pretty beat and having some pretty bad IT band pain in my left knee but Sarah was raging and ready to bike as always. The miles back to Purcellville flew by with a quick stop for pictures (that can't be shown on this blog) outside Naked Mountain Winery and a concrete sculpture garden in some rural Virginia town. The ride home on the W&OD was excruciating for me as I was just not in the bike shape required for doing hundred mile days while carrying tons of extra weight on my touring bike. Needless to say I was pretty happy to make it across the Key Bridge back into D.C. in one piece after 250+ miles over 3 days on the bike and some great memories to boot.

Kinetic half-iron and sprint triathlons - May 9 and 10, 2009

On Saturday May 9th I drove down to Lake Anna State Park in Spotsylvania, Virginia to participate in the Kinetic half-iron triathlon on Saturday 5/9/09 at 7:00 a.m. and the Kinetic sprint triathlon on Sunday 5/10/09 at 9:00 a.m. These were my first big triathlons of the season and outdoor swims in my wetsuit. I had been training hard running and swimming but had very little mileage on my bike so far this year coming into this weekend, so I was pretty unsure of how the races would go.

Kinetic half-iron triathlon on Saturday

swam 1.2 miles in 36:19
T1 of 4:01
biked 56 miles in 3:08:44
T2 of 2:12
ran 13.1 miles in 1:49:59
finished in 5:41:13
104th place out of 267 male finishers

Kinetic sprint triathlon on Sunday

750 meter swim in 13:20
T1 of 3:48
18 mile bike in 52:33
T2 of 1:35
5K run in 22:12
finished in 1:33:27
107th place out of 340 male finishers

I was pretty pleased with my performance over the weekend although I was rather disappointed at my biking splits. This weekend did get me motivated to get out on my bike more often. I had fun camping out on Lake Anna with some other kids from the triathlon team on Saturday night after the half roasting some hot dogs and marshmallows on our campfire. Waking up in a tent at 7 a.m. the morning after a half is not the ideal conditions for competing in a sprint but I survived. The end-of-the-year Georgetown Triathon Team party when we got back to D.C. that Sunday night was definitely a blast.

Race for Hope 5K - May 3, 2009

On Sunday May 3rd I rode my bike down to Freedom Plaza (located just on the east side of the White House) to run in the Race for Hope, a 5K run/walk around the streets of D.C. to benefit the National Brain Tumor Society and Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure. My last three years of PhD research in the Tumor Biology Training Program at Georgetown have been spent analyzing the cancer genome of the deadly brain tumor called glioblastoma multiforme that afflicts ~10,000 Americans each year. I have been identifying new genes that drive the pathogenesis of glioblastoma in the hopes of discovering new successful therapeutics for this uniformly lethal brain cancer. For more information on my research, please see one of my recent publications "Identification of p18INK4c as a tumor suppressor gene in glioblastoma multiforme" at http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/68/8/2564.

My previous personal best at the 5K distance was 19 min 6 sec run in October 2006. I had been putting in a lot of miles leading up to this race and had high hopes of running somewhere under 19 minutes. Unfortunately, all the running I had been doing was long slow mileage getting ready for the Bull Run 50, and the single interval session I did on a track two days before this race was not enough to get me in speed mode. It turned out to be a rainy morning on race day and the course was covered in puddles. After a ceremonial start by David Cook (last year's American Idol winner) and a crowd of brain tumor survivors carrying yellow balloons, the race went off at 9 a.m. I started up front and kept up with the leaders for a bit but just wasn't able to keep their pace all the way home. After dodging puddles rather unsuccessfully for 3.1 miles, I crossed the finish line in 19 min 23 sec (6:15 min/mile pace) good for 20th place out of 1,470 timed finishers. There were several high school track/cross country students out to run that morning, and I embarassingly was beaten by three 15 year olds, ouch! I have got to get faster.

Run Amuck 5K Mud Run - April 25, 2009

"This is the Run Amuck Mud Run! The Mud Run is a challenging 5K run in Rockville, Maryland with hills, tire obstacles, river crossings, walls, ropes, and MUD PITS. This is the most fun you can have running a 5K! View the course map at www.runamuckfestival.com. Race individually, as a couple, or as a member of a 4-person team. Choose the Open category with no restrictions on attire and footwear, or the Costumed category, which requires your own zany costume or matching costumes (for couples and teams)."

Our team "menage a quatre Georgetown style" crossed the 3.1 miles in approximately 1 hr 08 min coming in next to last place in the team costume division that went off at 1 p.m. However, we did win best dressed, most team spirit, most covered in mud at the finish line, and best dance moves at the afterparty. What could be better on a Saturday afternoon?!?

A more complete photo documentation of the event is available upon request.

IronMed Charity Triathlon - April 19, 2009

So 12 hours after completing the Bull Run 50 miler, I stood at 6.am. on Sunday morning in the Yates natatorium in order to race in the 2009 IronMed Charity Triathlon put on by the students of Georgetown University School of Medicine. It was a sprint distance race again this year consisting of a 750 yard swim in the indoor pool at Yates, a 12.5 mile bike on the paved Capital Crescent Trail, and 5k run on the C&O Canal Towpath. The D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty came to compete in the race again this year (now his 3rd year in a row) and brought along his triathlon posse to participate as well. The event seems to be turning into a "real triathlon" now with a crew of seasoned triathletes, skinsuits, aero bikes, etc. compared to the days of old when the bike course used to be on the C&O Canal Towpath and everyone used to ride old beater mountain bikes. I went off in the second heat at 6:46 a.m. While I was surprisingly not that incredibly sore from the day before, I was pretty damn tired and just didn't have much energy stored up to be "racing" already again. So I managed to complete the swim without drowning in 15 min and was the last one out of the pool. My legs felt reasonable on the bike but there was just no strength to push the pedals around, and I wasn't going much faster than 15 mph on the false-flat climb out Capital Crescent. I wound up completing the bike in 42 min, and then managed the 5k run in high spirits in 27 min. My total finishing time was 1:30:05 compared to 12 min swim/38 min bike/19 min run and a finishing time of 1:11:29 in last year's event. Nonetheless, a successful completion of my fifth IronMed Charity Triathlon that was followed by the 5th annual post-IronMed BBQ and party at my house.

Bull Run 50 miler - April 18, 2009

On the morning of Saturday April 18th I drove down to Hemlock Regional Park along the Occoquan River in Clifton, Virginia to "compete" (or possibly a more appropriate description is "participate") in the Bull Run 50 Miler. The Bull Run Run is a 50.4 mile trail run in the rolling hills of the Virginia countryside alongside the Occoquan River with two out and back loops (see the map of the course below) that included ~6300 feet of climbing throughout. "The BRR is a beautiful, tough run on the Bull Run Trail in Northern Virginia sponsored by the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club. The run's unique character includes a Civil War theme that respects the battles that occurred here many years ago. The BRR is a difficult challenge, but many have finished it. It is not easy, but it is not brutal. The BRR is not for casual runners, but if you like to run trails, come enjoy a day in Virginia's spring beauty as we honor those who fought here many years ago."

There were 314 of us lunatics that gathered together at the start line at 6:30 a.m. that morning to compete in the idiotic sport called ultramarathon running. It was to be one of the first warm days of the year - I think this was only the third run so far of the year in shorts and a t-shirt and no tights, longsleeves, gloves, hat, etc. It actually turned out to be quite a hot day for running an ultra (the high temperature reached 80 degrees) which greatly added to the difficulty of the run. It required constant consumption of fluid, salty foods, and electrolyte tablets to make sure that I didn't get dehydrated, hyponatremic, or other nasty medical term that would cause me not to make it to the finish line. I went off at a very slow and maintainable pace from the get-go, at least a min/mile slower pace than my typical weekend 20 miler out on the trails at Great Falls. I thought that I could pick up the pace later if I felt good but it was better not to blow up early. This turned out to be a wise decision as the heat was really draining, especially given that most of us had been training in cool weather all winter. The first loop took us out the bluebell trail and it was beautifully scenic with the bluebell flowers in full bloom (see the pictures) and was a lot less muddy than everyone had anticipated going into the race with all the rain we got earlier in the week. I completed the first of two out and back loops that came back to Hemlock Park (the start/finish) at mile 16.6 into the run at which time the race clock said 3 hrs 19 min. This is the time that I crossed the finish line of the Marine Corps Marathon last October (i.e. I ran almost 10 miles farther in October on the road in the same amount of time that I completed 16.6 on this day). I knew it was going to be a long day as I set off to complete another ~34 miles. It turned out to be a great day of running. The course was well marked and the aid stations were well stocked, both with goodies and wonderful volunteers. My new trail shoes were great and the only blisters I got were from the tops of my shoes digging into my ankles that I just shoved some gauze into my socks and pretty much calmed the problem. My toes, knees, everything was fine all day. It took me a little longer than I hoped in the end but I wound up crossing the finish line in 11 hrs 51 min 54 sec and 216th place out of 266 official finishers (5 hrs 20 min back from the unbelievable maniac that won the race - and people say that I have a running problem, what about this guy?!?). I was covered in salt, hungry, and tired when I got to the finish but it was time to get ready for Georgetown's IronMed Charity Triathlon the next morning. I was hoping my legs would be feeling up for another challenge only 12 hours after finishing this ridiculousness.