The Big Endurance Challenge

The North Face Endurance Challenge Marathon at Bear Mountain. Big title, big race.

This is what I'd been training for through winter and what I'd nervously been looking forward to for the last couple of weeks ever since I'd started to taper down and have that tired feeling where you just want to do the race and not carry on the training.

This was the info from the course guide I'd been looking at all week.

Trying to plan out my fueling strategy and still trying to get into my head how the hell I was going to pace this.
From last year's results I thought maybe a finish time between 4.15 and 4.30 and somewhere around 10min miles would be good enough with a bit of luck to get close to the age group awards.

We left just after 6am and the roads were nice and quiet. As it started an hour later (9am) than the half marathon version I'd done the previous two years the sun was already out and heating things up nicely.

Partly having the confidence of a solid training schedule behind me where I barely missed a session and a love of getting back onto some proper trails meant I was really looking forward to this one.
We also took two friends along to keep Heather occupied while I disappeared for the 4 and a half hours!

Here's me smiling at the relaxed start of the race and an example of the mixed terrain that lay ahead.
There were regular marked trails, unmarked little trails and rocky stretches that they tried to guide you through rather than following any actual path.
There were a couple of real boulder scrambles where I had a little smile to myself when I looked up ahead and seen this was where the little coloured flags were directing us to go.
There were a few moments like that. Is it left? Is it right? No. It's straight ahead off the path and up through the trees. Of course it is!
There was even a 1/4 mile of Tour De France alpine road climbing with an aid station right at the top. At least I managed to get down to 6.40min mile pace coming down the other side, which considering I'd done 15miles at that point tells you how steep it was.

Back to the start. The first 4 and a bit miles to the first aid station were the same as the half marathon I have done the last two years. I really tried to go slower than my body wanted to knowing there was so far to go and so much climbing to be done.
They had a timing mat here and I found out afterwards I was through here in 19th place averaging 8.50 pace.

I had my shorts with their little hip holster pockets containing one gel flask with 3 gels mixed with water and a little soft flask with water. The plan was to take these if needed and consume the water and hydration drink at the aid station combined with trying to take a gel from my flask or the aid table every 30-40 mins depending on where I was on the course.
They had a volunteer stationed like a 1/4 mile away ringing a bell or shouting that the next aid station was coming up which was really useful.

It's getting hot out here

It didn't take long to heat up and despite being in the trees for most of the course the sun got through very easily. It got up to around 20 degrees which wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that I'd just trained through the winter for this and it had only really been this warm for like three days this year so far.

I used my Garmin to gauge the distance run but that's all really. All the training and knowing your own pace and effort helps as I would look at the watch to see 9min something pace one minute then 11min plus the next so it really helped that I was semi-comfortable knowing what effort I could sustain even though it was going to be an hour longer than I'd ever run before!
At the start the starter asked how many people were running their first ever marathon and there were way too many shouts of 'yes', I would've been really worried if that was my first marathon.

What path?

As I kind of suspected the race settled down after a few miles and as happens to me quite often I ended up running mile 6 to mile 12 all on my own with nobody in sight whatsoever!
I was alone in the woods, just running along following the little coloured flags thinking my thoughts.

There were a few stretches where I ran and ran and then checked my watch only to see a mile had gone by and I was barely at half way. 13M still to go?!

The mixed terrain and not knowing the course kept me going and also I started to run into the back end of the 50K field, maybe even the 50M competitors? I seemed to be flying compared to them of course.

At the 14M aid station I was up to 12th although as I say I didn't know this at the time.

The next aid station was just after 20M and Heather had agreed to be there to cheer me on. I've never down a race before where I felt I needed any kind of cheering on or support to help me through the race but on this one I was really looking forward to seeing someone I knew. I didn't really need a cheer just a little break and like a mini reward along with the hydration and gel!

Pour that water in my cap

Hey, posing mid race, a novelty!

Okay, better get going.

I ran off up to the t-junction, the tape was on the left corner and after 21M you're pretty tired so my head was down going up the short climb. I turned left and ran about 50m then thought, oh oh, this doesn't seem right as I couldn't see any more tape up ahead.
Just then, two runners came round the top corner and were saying that wasn't the right way. Just then we looked back to see another runner run straight across the road and up through the trees.
Of course it was straight up the hill.
The other two runners took off and disappeared out of sight, the other guy I slowly caught and passed which kept me going for that couple of miles!

With a few miles to go we met the 10K course which I remembered from the half last year. This time it was the marathon relay that were using the 10K for their loops. I sped past a couple of them and was feeling good knowing I only had around 2 miles to go.
Then I was thrown off slightly as the marathon course deviated up and over another rocky little climb, I was cursing the organisers at this point, what the hell.

We rejoined the 10K course and there were a couple of slight rocky little uphills on this never ending course. These last 3 or so miles really were the longest 3 miles of my life.

I felt good coming through to the finish but I knew I was totally done. As soon as I stopped, I downed some water and found Heather sitting on the hill.
I collapsed on the ground and my leg muscles were so tired. I've never felt my legs so tired before, like a weird pain where you can't sit still, I probably shouldn't have been sitting that was the problem!

I barefooted it down to the ice bath and sat for a few minutes and rubbed the cold sponge on my calves. We got some free food but after a bite of hot dog I decided I didn't really feel like eating that kind of food right now, I did down the entire cold Diet Pepsi though.

As we got ready to leave I went to check the results and was really pleased to see I had come in 8th overall and had secured 1st place in the 40-44 age group.

Look at the winner's pace, ridiculous!

The prize was pretty poor, a buff and a couple of gel blocks (ha ha) but after thinking back and despite not having any time reference to go off unlike a road marathon I felt this was the most proud I've been of how a race has gone for a long long time.

This event was tough. The terrain was unforgiving, very little flat or sections to relax on, total concentration required (I did trip 7 times!) and with the sunny weather and thre fueling needed to run for an hour longer than I've ever run before. I overheard some people say the 50K was one of the hardest 50K's you can do.
After the last couple of weeks though, I definitely prefer the trails and am going to pick out some more events like this in the future.

Interestingly my legs got rid of the soreness pretty quickly and I look forward to seeing how they feel when I bike to work during the week as it's Bike To Work month here in NYC.

Onto the next one, I have the Brooklyn Half Marathon on the 16th so we'll see how my legs feel when I actually try to run!

Return to Bear Mountain

The North Face Endurance Challenge Half Marathon at Bear Mountain (what a mouthful) was my main goal for the first half of the year.
I had felt really strong in the last couple of weeks leading up to Sunday's race especially on easy runs but was unsure how close I would get to last year's 1hour 51mins (6th place) as I knew I ran hard and remembered that I had finished really strong last May.

Again, we hired a car for the day and set off at 5am. A little bit delayed as we had to navigate some road closures due to Sunday also being the 5 Borough Bike Ride where thousands of cyclists get to ride on closed roads. Luckily we were off before they got going.
The weather forecast was dry and overcast but with the threat of rain later on that afternoon. In the end it was perfect, slightly cool at the 8am start but with the sun breaking out towards the end. It was actually the hardcore rain we had two days before (apparently Wednesday was the 10th wettest April day ever in Manhattan) that changed the course... for the better.

This was bone dry last year!

On the very first climb into the woods within half a mile we encountered a big pile of mud across the path and then a slightly rocky uphill patch that had water streaming down it. I realised it was going to be a lot wetter than before and immediately I assumed I was going to be slower because of that.

fresh and clean

I went off quite fast and thought there must've have been about 10 people up ahead and then like last year within 3 miles it settled down to where I ended up following the same guy for the next 7 miles with nobody really behind me. The other difference from last year was that around the 3 mile mark I decided to stop at the side for a pee! It had bothered me since about 400m into the race, I could've carried on but it was bugging me mentally, ha ha. You think a lot about different stuff during a half marathon. That guy passed me while I stopped and it took me the next 7 miles to finally catch him and pass him. And just like last year, it kept me going trying to keep him in sight so I didn't have to try so hard to spot the course markings.

I didn't think I'd really remember the course but occasionally I'd remember bits as I got to them, I knew there was a long-ish climb after the 9M feed station and although there are no miles markers, when I did pass one saying 11M I knew that was incorrect based on how long I'd been running for, more like 10M!

There were a few tiny stream crossings, plenty of mud patches and a lot of running water on the rocky downhill stretches. In the last couple of miles you meet up with the 10K race runners and I looked forward to this as I knew I'd get that same boost as last year plus knowing it was the home stretch meant I felt I was flying! I seen the photographer positioned right after a mud bath and as I stormed through it I hoped he'd get some good photos of me, and he did!

splish

splash

dash

I hadn't really looked at my watch for a while, just in case I tripped! I only really looked at a handful of times, just to get an idea of where the water stop would be as I planned to take a gel and then just to know there was 20 odd minutes left to go.

300m from the finish!

I came into the finish, crossed the line and then was extremely pleased to see that I'd crushed last year's time by over 2 minutes, 1 hour 48min 52secs.

They have timing mats at 2.6M and 8.3M so afterwards I seen that I was actually about 35 secs slower to the 2.6M and 8.3M marks this time, so I must have picked up all that time towards the end.

I finished in 5th position out of the 677 finishers and as the overall 3rd place prize was taken by a 42 year old I got 1st place in the 40-44 category! Incidentally I was only 9 secs behind 4th, damn that pee stop. Age group prizes weren't up to much though, a water bottle, some gels and a smartwool sticker. The post-race food they offer is really good though as is the technical race t-shirt and Smartwool socks you get.

I scoped out some pancake place in New Jersey that looked like it was in an industrial park just off the Palisades Highway on our way home but despite the look it was an old school diner and the strawberry banana pancakes I had were just what I needed.

Then of course, we used our rental car to take all our winter clothing to our storage unit, switched it for the remaining summer clothing, a little active recovery doesn't hurt..... and then went for pizza.

So I was well pleased indeed with that result. An easy week this week although a couple of weeks ago I did enter a 10K for this coming Saturday, ha ha. It's around Roosevelt Island, so it was more the different location that encouraged me to do it, plus it's an NYCRuns event, so a little cheaper and lower key than a NYRR event... AND it's directly off the F train and that's what matters!

Bear Mountain = excellent!

Race weekend started with a concert on the Friday night.
I was off work on Friday so set off into the city around 4pm to pickup our race numbers from The North Face store on the upper west side. I then met up with Heather while we had some food and headed off to see Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite who is a blues musician and was on the harmonica during this tour.
I'd never been to the Beacon Theatre It was really nice, more like a concert hall, very ornate. I looked it up and although built in 1929 it was renovated in 2009. Although you couldn't quite gauge how old it really was as the decor has a little of that fake old look, a la Las Vegas.

The best bit being the Harlem Gospel Choir who joined them on stage or two or three songs:

So I got to bed around midnight and had to get up at 6.40am for an 8am to 4pm work shift on the Saturday. Although I come home tired it could have been so much worse given how busy recent Saturdays have been!

Race day morning involved a 4.30 am start. Right up until Friday we had planned to run it with friends.... who have a car. Unfortunately due to a death in the family they couldn't go and so we rented a zipcar late Friday for 24 hours and picked it up at 9pm on the Saturday night.
We left just after 5am and due to empty roads got to the car park around 6.15am. From here there were school shuttle buses taking you the 5 miles to the race start area.

It was a little cold up at the start area but you could tell it was going to heat up later so I decided not to bother with arm warmers or anything, plus there were supposed to be three aid stations on the course so I didn't carry any food or drink either.

A chilly start

The race started at 7am and I was in wave 1 due to inputting somewhere around a 7min mile pace for a half. I had read someone's elses blog from last year warning that it narrowed to single track after a couple of miles and that it was difficult to pass, so maybe I went off a little harder than normal from the start. I looked up and could only see around twenty+ people up ahead so thoughts already turned to a top twenty or thirty position, ha ha.

It turned out that apart from a little section of downhill where you had to be careful running behind others as they obscured your vision of the trail it was wide enough to pass, plus I then started picking of other runners once it started heading uphill.

After about 4 or 5 miles the positions settled down and it was actually quite spaced out with me running a little harder to try and keep the guy in front of me in sight. The yellow ribbons (the half marathon colour) tied to the trees were a little difficult to see as they were obscured by the more dominant blue and orange ones but they did have plenty of them and 99% of the course was on a fairly well defined/trodden path with nice arrows if faced with a choice of direction.

I could kind of tell the guy up ahead was more of a road runner as he would pull away on the flatter sections and I would catch up on the uphills. It's good to have someone to track though!

The course was a mixture of mostly dry trails and a lot of rocky paths both uphill and downhill.
The dried out riverbeds full of different sized rocks that were the worst. There was one such downhill section after about 9 miles where I could feel my feet getting bruised and my feet sliding in the shoes, and I was delighted to get back onto the flatter trail to get back to 'normal' running.

The other bad part was a short steep downhill section on a slippy dry dirt path which reminded me about the Ythan Challenge riverbank where you purposely run into the trees to stop yourself falling.
My biceps hurt a little from holding my arms so stiff in order to balance myself coming down these hills. It's mentally tough as you know you can run a lot faster but the terrain limits you from doing this so you often feel yourself sprinting away when you get back to the normal wider paths.

I don't run with a GPS device and there were no mile markers on the course and due to the varying terrain I didn't have any idea of how far I'd run. I knew one aid station was around 8.9M so when I got there I asked and was told around 8.5M so that gave me an idea of where I was.
By this point I had been passed by two other runners on the downhill but there was the longest steepest uphill section just after the aid station and I started catching the guy I had been following all race and one other runner, both of whom were walking uphill.

This was the course profile:

El-eh-vation, woo woo

I looked up some Scottish hill races to gain some perspective on what 2324ft of climb was. It turned out to be a bit more than Bennachie and about the same as Clachnaben, albeit over a 13.1M distance.
The actual race profile turned out to be a bit different than I was expecting, more rolling terrain with a few short sharp ascents and descents. There wasn't the same long constant uphill sections (or downhill) that you get back home and I was actually a little disappointed in the uphill, as that was where I was gaining time on others.
The trails, especially if the weather has been dry, are a lot more dry and dusty than Scotland but there was a good downhill slightly rocky section in the last 2.5M and the Half Marathon race merged with the accompanying 10K race so I really felt I was flying as I tore past the 10K runners!
The two previous months training paid off as I felt really strong here and with the help of two short uphill sections I was able to catch up the two guys that passed me a few miles back and I finished really strongly.

The finish area at Bear Mountain was super nice and the sun had indeed come out and it was nice to sit up on the hill overlooking the finish and wait for Heather to finish the 10K.

I wandered into one of the tents where you could find out your finish time etc. I finished in 1hour 51mins and was absolutely delighted to see that was for 6th position and 2nd in the 36-45 age group!
There were supposed to be over 800 runners but the finishers numbered 666 in the end.

What I eat after a race is funny, as I'd trained solidly for a couple of months for this, it's some kind of relief to go nuts and eat freely for the rest of the day.
I had a somewhat healthy Muscle Milk protein drink and a protein bar along with some water before starting on the Haribo sweets and fig bar biscuits. The couple of small cups of Pepsi they had in the runner tent went down well too.
Back at the car I had a Diet Dr Pepper from our cooler along with a coconut macaroon and then as we didn't have to have the car back until 9pm we made a stop somewhere in New Jersey for some Baskin Robbins ice cream for me and a Taco Bell drive thru for Heather.
On return to Brooklyn, Heather ran into Target for some groceries, you've gotta make the most of having a car here, while I ordered a pizza and cheesecake from an Italian restaurant I keep cycling past.
Around 7.30pm we went back out and drove south thirty blocks to the more Latino area near Sunset Park and using some kind of Cinco de Mayo excuse we tried a little Mexican place I'd read about and came home after dropping the car back with a couple of little taquitos.... followed by the other coconut macaroon and my fourth or fifth can of soda.

I also got a major reminder of my skin colour before we head to Hawaii in a few weeks.
Post-race, I was sitting down for a couple of hours.... under the sun. I did apply a little suncream to my arms and neck, put my cap on, and for a short time I put a small towel over my legs. However, the one part I didn't cover....

Ridiculous

Not too sore in the couple of days afterwards. Just the usual shins and tired quads and calves. Will be doing less running this week, a couple of bike days to work and just generally trying to recover fully before tackling the Brooklyn Half Marathon on May 18th!

The training starts now

This year's main race entry and target goal is the North Face Endurance Challenge up at Bear Mountain State Park on May 4th. I drew up a race training plan as best I could given the type of event it is and the training started today.
They have distances from 5K right up to 50K including a marathon relay but along with a couple of friends we have decided to give the half marathon a go. The finishing times from last year seem to add a good 30 minutes to a 10K and having read a couple of forums and seen the course profile I can see why.

I only ever have work schedules up to the end of the following week and with such differing shifts it could take a bit of planning and getting used to running at different times in order to fit the sessions in if I want to give it a good go.
Although I love trail events and good challenging hills so this should be brilliant, the worst part again will be getting up in the middle of the night to get out there for the 8am start.

Woo-hoo, 5 star scenery! I always trip off-road when I try and look at something like the view though.

Today I had my first encounter with any kind of American health care as I had to get an eye-check up to get more contact lenses. They had real trouble finding my health benefits as there were no details  listed under my plan. I called my provider and got them to email the details and apparently I just get some kind of discount plan on eye care.
It was also maybe the first time I had heard the phrase "at your age", as he recommended getting the eye drops thing so he could see behind my eye. I definitely think it's a very American thing to be referred to a specialist for everything. So now I have to see a retina specialist to take a digital photograph of the back of my eye to give them a baseline record in case anything changes. And even with my discounts it was around £53 just for the eye test and contact lense checkup.

A short hike

Last week, myself, Heather and two of her friends went on a hike. One of her friends is possibly doing a Kilimanjaro trek next year so needed to try out some new boots. Plus I get out of the house and get to see another new part of America!

We hired a car and drove the 50miles from the centre of Manhattan to the Bear Mountain area. This involved heading over the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, up the Palisades and back into New York state.

Bear Mountain Bridge

We parked at the Fort Montgomery State Historic Site car park and once we'd found where the start of the route was, it was fairly straight forward. I even remembered how to read a map.

But what with everything being back to front in this country, I found out that the dotted line on the map turned out not be a thin wooded trail like back home, but instead a larger forestry road.

Short and steep was the order of the day:

© http://www.nycdayhiking.com

Popolopen footbridge

The footbridge was all smashed up from the last storm in the area but luckily the water was low enough and there were enough stones to make our way across while staying dry.

Once over the water it was a fairly steep climb but really enjoyable. Bone dry rock but even had to use my hands a lot to pull myself up. Once we got to the top the view was superb.

The same bridge we were level with at the start

As the area has some old forts and historic battlegrounds, there is a cairn at the top in memory of fallen comrades.

Plus it borders the US West Point Military Academy so we could hear gunfire from the top of the hill away in the distance.

The weather was again, really hot and sunny but luckily there was so much shade on the route otherwise I would have struggled. I took a litre of water with me, but we had to stop at some guys house in the woods on the way down to refill our bottles. When you start to run low on water and are a little dehydrated it's really easy to see how you just want to pour all of it over your face.

For the whole route I've never seen so much wildlife under your feet. Centipedes, tonnes of those big daddy long leg type spiders, ants. Even seen the tail of a snake slither away under a rock. A big hawk circling the top of the hill. But the big winner on the day was this guy right by the side of the road.