Monument Avenue 10K - Race Report

Spring has sprung and race season is in full swing. My first race of the season was the highly popular Monument Avenue 10K, a Sports Backers event whose participants include newbies to the elite and everything in between. The race is quite the spectacle with bands all along the course, costumed runners, cheer team competition, and lots of spectators shouting, some from root tops, shouting silly names. And along with the first race of the season comes the first race report of the season which I will try to keep brief.

This race would be the first big test of my fitness. And while I swim 4 times a week, bike 3 times a week, and run 4 or 5 times a week for triathlon training which is my primary focus, I was prepared to PR at this road race. I had put in a lot of quality workouts on the track building speed and fitness. My coach had done an excellent job preparing me and on race day I knew I could easily achieve a personal record (PR). 

Rather than being content with beating my previous personal record, my coach thought I should shoot for 40 minutes. I had run a 19:12 5K on the track which is a controlled environment where pacing is pretty easy. And I had run a 20 minute road 5k at the hilly Gobble Wobble 5K. But running a 40 minute 10K would mean maintaining 6:26 minute miles for 40 minutes which would be a challenge and would likely put me in the pain cave. I thought I could do it based on a 2 mile time trial I had done a few weeks before the 10K but my pacing would have to be spot on. 

On race day, I ran the 2.3 miles from my house to the start. It was a good warm up although in hindsight, I think I could have got my engine a little more revved up to match what I typically do on the track on Saturday mornings. It is always hard for me to get totally warmed up at these races. I get a little nervous and there is some slight performance anxiety that occasionally holds me back a bit. But running down to the start was pretty nice. Thankfully, Melissa would be driving down and I gave her my back to check at the bag check with dry clothes and my phone, keys, etc. It was quite nice of her to allow me this luxury. Thank you Melissa. 

My biggest goal besides running as fast as possible for 6.2 miles was to not go out too fast in the first mile. It was going to be hard and require concentration and discipline. But if I could reign things in on that first mile, I thought I would have a good chance of meeting my time goal. 

When the race started, I took off relaxed as possible and let some of the speed demons pull away from me. I did my first Monument Ave 10K 10 years ago. I have run it about 7 or 8 times since then. After all those races, this was the first time I actually did not go out too fast. I managed to run the first mile in about 6:36. I was off the pace but I did not cook myself in the first 200 meters like I usually do. I was happy with that. 

As the race progressed, I knew I would easily beat my previous best of 42:18. But I was not sure about the 40 minute goal. As I continued to run, I ticked off the miles relatively easily. I was slightly off the pace but I felt relaxed and in control. It was a really good feeling. I was enjoying my pace and while there were a few times when I tried to pick it up, I never got the motivation to drive myself into the pain cave. In hindsight, I should have tried to run with one of my teammates who I saw later at the finish. I think we would have both run a great deal faster if we had run together like we had done on the track during training. But I never saw him and did not think about it until after the race. 

In some ways the race was uneventful. I ran a 40:37 which is a 6:33 per mile pace. Don't get me wrong,  I was very happy with this new PR and not upset about not meeting the 40 minute goal. But after the race, I was not wrecked like usual. I had stayed comfortable but it was my new comfortable. For whatever reason, I did not seem motivated to put myself in overdrive. I was not compelled. But I learned I can run a sub 41 minute 10k fairly easily with the right training. At 47 years old, I am pretty happy with that. And I am so happy with my coaching. David Luscan has the right formula for me and I continue to improve and maybe more importantly, I continue to learn about my body, how to tune in to it, and I continue to learn about the sport of road racing and triathlon. It brings be great joy to be able work so effortlessly with someone to achieve my fitness goals and I feel like Dave understands my drive and understands how training and racing has become a passion for me. And as a bonus, he really knows what he is doing. 

Embracing Grief

As we approach the anniversary of that terrible day in the hospital last year, I wanted to talk about grief, happiness, and the ups and downs of loss. Many of you have lost loved ones and know that the grief really never goes away. It will always linger, sometimes prominently, sometimes in the background. And although grief is present in my life, it does not mean that I can't be happy sometimes. I smile. I joke. I enjoy myself, my family, and my friends. I make people laugh and they make me laugh. I do things that I like to do and try to engineer my life in such a way that I set myself up for success in both work and play. I also feel sad, sometimes overwhelmingly so. But I like to try to put on a happy face. That's the way I was raised. My parents both always smiled, nodded politely to strangers, and gave off a positive vibe whenever possible. 

However, it was not always easy and there were times of worry, pain, and sadness. By now, those of you who have followed my blog and seen my pictures on Facebook know that I like to be as positive as possible. I don't see why anyone wouldn't be. To me, social media is not the place for constant doom and gloom. But sometimes the happy pictures mask some of the darker times. The picture above is one of the few that I have showing discomfort and pain in both John and my Mom. You can imagine John's discomfort while stuck in his body cast after major invasive surgery. One of many surgeries. 

Discomfort, pain, and unhappiness are part of life. We can accept it, let it wash over us, and know that happiness will return or we can dwell on it and let it erode us. It can be a roller coaster. Smiles one minute, uncontrollable tears the next. But I think the key is knowing that it is OK to be sad and to embrace it fully and talk about it, don't hide it. 

That's what I want to do today. Talk about it. Lately, I have felt especially sad as I miss my brother John. I can't help thinking about those last days in the hospital. In hindsight, I feel like I could have done more. I could have demanded better care from the doctors. I could have known more about my brother's birth defect and how it affects adults. I feel like I could have done so much more to fight for John. Could we have prevented his death? Maybe. I truly think he would have had a much better chance with better care and if I had been more assertive. 

Whether that is true or not we will never know but that is how I feel about it. I accept that John is gone although sometimes it is hard to believe. But I will always remember that night in the hospital and the morning after. And I will always wish I had acted differently. And that is OK. I don't think it is unhealthy to think that way. In time, the sadness will not be as deep, the regret not as strong. I know that. In the meantime, I will cry, I will fear the night. I will grieve and I will remember John's pleas to go home, his requests for water, his fear, his struggle to breathe. I will remember him crashing and spewing dark liquid and the shock in his eyes. John knew things were bad, real bad. He knew more than anyone in the hospital I think. 

I miss you John.

Good Friday - 2015: John is Admitted to the Hospital

It was one year ago today when my mother received a call from John at work. He was not feeling well. He had a terrible headache and blurred vision. In fact, later he would report that he could not see at all briefly. My mom drove to NFCU and picked him up and they went to see his doctor. John's doctor was out but another doctor saw him. John's blood pressure and pulse were extremely elevated, enough so that the doctor called the ambulance to take John immediately to the hospital.

When the ambulance came, the EMTs asked John and my mom which hospital he wanted to go to. When they said Fairfax, the ambulance drive said, "Are you sure?" In hindsight, we now know why the ambulance driver questioned us. Apparently Fairfax hospital is home to horror stories about poor care and substandard treatment. It used to be considered a great hospital and there are still certain wings of the hospital that are well known for their care. However, John's condition did not fall into the category that would provide him with award winning care. In fact, it was just the opposite.

John was admitted to the hospital and my mother called to tell me.  I decided to knock out my bike workout and then drive up to see John in the hospital. I was concerned about his health but based on past experience, I thought he would bounce back as usual. In fact, less than a year earlier, John had been sick and was admitted to the hospital. He was throwing up and had some other symptoms. The doctors ran a multitude of tests but never did figure out why he was so sick. John eventually just got better. But one of the tests revealed that John had a tumor on his kidney. One of the doctors commented that it was good he got sick because it allowed the doctors to make this discovery. Shortly after John had recovered from his sickness, he had a follow up with a specialist and in the summer of 2014, he had surgery to remove the tumor from his kidney. A few weeks after renal cancer surgery, John was back at work. He always seemed to recover well and go on being John. He just had one more story to add to his list of health care encounters. Now he was a cancer survivor.

After driving up to NOVA in the I95 traffic, I arrived at the hospital and got the full page of directions from the lobby information desk on how to get to the hospital room. John was on the seventh floor of tower 1 in the neuroscience intensive care unit.  The directions included several stair cases as well as multiple elevators and corridors. I finally made it up to John's room. John was very happy to see me although he was in a great deal of pain. His headache was relentless. He was constantly asking us to move the pillow around to try to relieve the pain in his head. The best words that describe how John felt are "absolutely miserable." John has put up with lots of painful surgeries throughout his life as well as broken bones from falling. But this was probably the worst he had felt as an adult in a long time.

I stayed with John and some of my other family members for a while. We visited and tried to make John as comfortable as possible. The nursing staff came in and out occasionally to take John's vitals and to tend to him. At this point, John did not really have a diagnosis. The hospital staff said that he "might" have meningitis. But no one was really sure. I took a dinner break and then after a while, I went back to my Mom's house to go to bed. My plan was to knock out my run the next morning and then go back to the hospital. I had trouble sleeping. I was a bundle of nerves. But the next morning, I got up and ran 19 miles before refueling and going back to the hospital. John was the same. Still miserable. Still no definitive diagnosis from the doctors. I stayed through the afternoon while my mom went home to take a nap.

After spending the rest of the evening at the hospital, I again went back to my mom's house and went to bed. I again did not sleep well. But in the morning, I did my bike ride. I did 5 hours on the bike trail before returning to the hospital. In hindsight, if I had known that we would be losing my brother, I would not have bothered with my workouts. But I thought John would be OK. He always got better. That was just what he did.

After spending the afternoon and early evening at the hospital with no changes in John's condition or diagnosis, I went back to home to RVA so I could return to work the next day. It was a tiring weekend but I knew that in a day or two, John would improve and start getting back to his normal self. That's what I thought of course. As we all know, I was very wrong.