Annapolis 10 Miler and a Birthday Celebration!

This weekend marked not only the 35th anniversary of the Annapolis 10 Miler, but also my 35th birthday! I spent the weekend celebrating--with Mom, Dad. Mark and Soba and then by running and then with Mom, Dad, Mark and Soba again! I was majorly pampered this weekend! :)

It started on Saturday night, August 28, when we drove to Mom and Dad's after packet pick up. Packet pick up was at the Navy/Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis, which was also the start of the race.


Mom and Dad fixed my requested pre-race meal: sliders for everyone else and a veggie burger for me, home made potato salad (German style), and corn on the cob. Mom tried a new and very yummy potato salad that was made from fingerling potatoes. It had a lot of garlic, some lemon, and parsley---YUMMY!

We also had hors d'oeuvres as usual (see below--me with bean dip!--to give me a little extra motoring power the next day!)....

I went to bed totally stuffed and excited for my race the next day. The entire family was passed out on the couch at 9:30 and went up to bed before 10! (Yes, Mom included!)

I drank a lot of water and I think I got up every hour until the race. I woke up a little nervous--it had been since mid June that I had run 10 miles and it had been since mid July that I had run a race....and to top it all off, it was supposed to be cooler but that doesn't mean much...so I was anxious to see how hot it was.

As it turned out...it was about 68 when we left for the race start---it felt magnificent! I had been so worried about the heat! The roads were clear and it was a quick drive down Ritchie Highway to the start....


We got there in plenty of time....it wasn't even fully light in the sky yet when we arrived. Mark and Soba took me---Mom and Dad stayed home and were supposed to sleep in, but had gotten up to wish me luck. The course was a difficult one for spectators to watch and after a lot of convincing Mom and Dad agreed that it might be for the best.

The start seemed slow considering the line itself never seemed that far away....it took almost five minutes to get to the start.



The race is capped at 5500 runners and it sells out in hours. It was another race that I had programmed in my iCal and had set the alarm to go off so that I would be sure to register when the race opened!

Below, you can see me waving to Mark as the race started and I finally crossed the start line!


Mark surprised me between Mile 3 and 4 by showing up on the course, at the top of a hill....it was a much welcomed surprise! :)



And there sat my Noodle, not even noticing that I went by!


Mark and Soba were at the finish line--and Mark caught this picture of me about to cross (you can see my legs at least!) I finished in 1:37.4....not a spectacular time, but I was really, really happy with it. It was near 80 when the race finished...still a very nice temperature but starting to get hot. They had ice cold hand towels for us at the finish line that cooled me down immensely quickly....felt so good! :) The race was a really nice one and I felt that I did a great job of pacing myself. I never felt terrible. I never felt that I was going too fast. I just felt great and enjoyed the run...which was a very nice way to celebrate my birthday a day early! :)

My splits were as follows:

Mile 1: 9:16
Mile 2: 9:30
Mile 3: 8:44
Mile 4: 10:01
Mile 5: 9:48
Mile 6: 10:14
Mile 7: 10:11
Mile 8: 9:36
Mile 9: 9:51
Mile 10: 10:22

It is also here that I should mention, while a beautiful course, it was far from flat---it was incredibly undulating!

Then...on to celebration part 3!


Mom made my birthday brunch...requested omlettes in a bag with hashbrowns as a side.


Lemon cupcakes for dessert with coolwhip instead of icing (although I was offered icing if I would prefer it) with flakes of coconut for on top!


A perfect summer treat! A nice rendition of a birthday cake Mom! Thanks! :)

Soba rested up--after all, he had had a very long, tiring morning watching everyone on the race course! :)


We had a wonderful weekend and I wouldn't have wanted to spend my 35th birthday any other way! :)

Oh and for those counting--15 races down, 5 to go! :)

My official race results are:

Amy Barba Trenkle #4929

Washington, DC

Age: 34 Gender: F

Distance	10M
Clock Time	1:37:40
Overall Place	2592 / 4581
Gender Place	925 / 2079
Division Place	169 / 4581
Age Grade	51.2%
Pace	9:47
5M Chip	47:15
10M Clock	1:44:36
Sext	2080
Divt	331

An Inspirational Quote

From my Runner's World daily quotes....

If you set a goal for yourself and are able to achieve it, you have won your race. Your goal can be to come in first, to improve your performance, or just finish the race. It's up to you.

Dave Scott, triathlete

Runnin' In the Dark: Rockville Twilight 8K

I ran my 14th race Saturday night. It's one of the races that dates back to my early days of running in DC: the Rockville Twilight 8K.

Mark decided not to run it and to take it easy on his back which he did something to at the gym the day before. But of course, he and Soba were there to be my cheerleaders!

As it turns out, it worked out well that he drove because finding parking was terrible and he ended up dropping me off at the start line.

He and Soba arrived a few minutes before the gun went off--just in time to take some pre-race photos.


And of course, a photo of my cheerleader extraordinaire! :)


I had a great time on the run--the weather was how I like it: no sun (love those twilight runs!), 88 degrees, and very humid.

Mark took a lot of very cool picture, but wasn't able to get a picture of me.

I'm posting these though because I think the shots were cool...and well, they do give you a flavor of the run...

It could have been a perfect race IF I didn't have to go to the bathroom at mile 2...and mile 3...and mile 4...
And my time would have been better if I hadn't had a conversation with various race officials about the location of any upcoming porta potties---of which there were none.

Or if I hadn't stopped to walk for a quarter mile, out of desperation, looking for some kind of bathroom...
My time was decent with the aforementioned said....45:30...but I was irritated because without my potty emergency I think it would have been a much better timeand a PR for the 8K this year.


Oh well....there will be another race soon! :) Number 14 checked off!

The post run festival was fun...and we celebrated with a YogiBerry in Cleveland Park! Wooohoo!

Celebrating the French: Bastille Day 4 Miler

Wooohoooo!

#13 finished! French style!

In celebration of Bastille Day, the DCRRC sponsored a 4 mile race on the Custis Trail, leaving from Fletcher's Boathouse. It was a nice, laid back race, limited to 150 runners. Prizes (a bottle of wine) went to the top male and top female finisher.

It rained a lot yesterday, but around 4:30 it cleared and the sun came out, which meant one thing: HUMIDITY!


Post race, the temperature was only 80 degrees, however, Mark and I think there was matching humidity for it. I personally, LOVED it---it was ideal conditions for me---I love feeling the humidity if the sun isn't on me. The run was along the C&O Canal, but on the paved Custis Trail, a loop where we started near mile 8.0, ran to 7.5, turned around, ran to mile 9.0 and back to the start/finish.


The timing pads were set up right on the trail and had the added bonus of sharing the experience with local commuters on bikes and local runners who were on the trail at the same time.


We were happy with our time: we finished in 32 minutes (almost even). When final results are posted I will post them in this entry.


It was the perfect way to remember the storming of the Bastille! Vive le France!

Making Waves: The DC Triathlon

So after a first attempt at a triathlon last September in Massachusetts I completed an Olympic distance triathlon on June 20. The inaugural DC Triathlon was all all through out the city. You can see the map of the course at my earlier post (One Small Step for [this] Man).


On the Saturday I went and picked up my race packet. Lots of fun, but surprisingly small in comparison to some of the running race packet pickup events we have been to this year. It was in a hotel meeting room. I also had to go rack my bike in the transition area. I rode my bike from home, racked it up (and checked out all the competition). I also discovered that the transition area was organized by Sprint and Olympic distances, and then age inside each race distance. I was in the second to last row......what does this say about the average age of triathletes?
Sunday morning came around waaaaaay to early. The race didn't start until 6:30, but they closed the transition area at 6:15 - which meant that if I wanted to get my gear inside I wanted to get there sometime between 5:50 and 6:00. I think I woke up at 4:00. That was the first, and possibly the hardest part of the whole event. Here I am all geared up about to go out the door. I give Amy a huge "thank you" for getting up so early to drop me off.

So I had planed ahead and ordered a triathlon wetsuit to wear in the Potomac. I was excited about wearing the suit because I had read how much faster you can swim in one, but I was much more excited to wear the suit because I wanted as many layers between me and whatever was floating in the Potomac. The problem was that the water temperature the morning of the race was 82 degrees - well above the cut off for wearing a wetsuit. I was forced to swim without it. I could have worn my tri jersey, but the college swimmer in me just couldn't think about swimming with all that drag.

As I was lining up in the starting corral I noticed some people setting up this handy tent......if your saying to yourself, "thats nice, it is a cooling tent so people don't overheat." you would be very wrong. It is actually a hazmat tent so when you exit the Potomac you get sprayed down in a poor attempt to wash off any diseases that may have latched onto you as you swam. I almost put on the wetsuit at this point even if it meant getting disqualified......

The swim start was fun. When they called your heat you ran down a dock and jumped in. Everyone had to tread water for a bit until the race stated - then it was everyone for themselves. Kicking, biting, it all seemed fine in the name of swimming fast. before the start I tried to get towards the front of the group, so I think I did a pretty good job of moving ahead of most of the craziness, but I still got kicked (and kicked a few people myself.)

So here is a pretty go view from near the start line to the Memorial bridge I had to swim under. The turn around point was just on the other side. As I was treading water and looking down the course I have to say that I had a bit of trepidation. It looks kinda far. This also might be a good time to mention that I didn't really train for this race. I did some swimming (maybe 5 times in 4 months) and I ran some with Amy, but I can't really call what I did training. This wasn't helping my confidence much I I looked out over the swimming course. My plan for the race hinged on not going too fast during the swim. I get a bit competitive when I swim and if I tried to have the fastest swim time of the day there wasn't going to be any gas in the tank when it got time to run.

I made it out of the water in good form and not having swallowed too much water from the river. I got a bit lost at the turn around point because I couldn't see the buoy with the rising sun in my eyes. I got chased back on course by some friendly firefighters on a fire boat.

My first transition went well. It wasn't the fastest transition time (mostly due to my fear of getting sun burned and taking time to put on sun block) but I was soon off and riding.

One of the best things about the bike portion of the race was that it twisted and turn back over itself so it was really easy for Amy to be out on the course and cheer for me. She did such a wonderful job - it always made me feel like I rockstar when she would cheer for me. Maybe I'm a bit bias, but she was clearly the best cheerer on the course. She had made all these different signs for me. She would pop up on the course, raise some funny sign in the air and start cheering for me as I rode by. It was a great motivator!

I finished the bike and was feeling pretty good. I had been trying to not push myself on this first triathlon and I went into the run feeling good. As Amy shot this photo of me exiting the transition area she was yelling at me to slow down. Apparently I was sprinting.........
So I made it about 0.5 miles at that pace, and when Amy took this picture I was starting to feel my legs getting tired. This was also the point when the heat started to get to me. I love cold weather - I wilt when it gets too hot. Running in hot weather is really not my thing. So by the time I started running it was well into the 80's and quickly approaching 90.

Amy snapped this picture at about mile 5. It should have been a great shot with the Capitol in the background. Something that could have been on the cover of a magazine - the problem was that I was sooooo hot and tired by this point that I was walking. I don't know who designed this race course, but there was a serious flaw. After this photo was taken I ran across the front of the Capitol, turned around, ran back and could see the finish line - then bam! the course took a crazy turn and you had to run up Capitol Hill. I was so tired and hot at this point. I really need to send an email to the race directors about this fun little part of the race.

So after the long plod up Capitol Hill and turned around and made the final push towards the finish line. The whole experience was a great one, and I will defiantly be doing another one again, although I think I need to find one in a cooler part of the country or sometime in the Fall. The biggest lesson is that I think the next one I do, I will actually put some training time in and set my goals more on going fast than just finishing it.

So in the final tally here are my times. Not a bad first triathlon I think.....

Swim	T1	Bike	T2	Run
28:26	5:05	1:18:04	5:18	1:03:20