15K – BEYOND DEFEAT

RACE REPORT: Ted Corbitt 15k – 59:43

Posted on December 22, 2014 by admin

Posted in All 1 Comment

A 15k race, for me, is a blast. Right when things start to really hurt, the race is over.

It was a tad chilly, but then again the Ted Corbitt is always chilly due to it being held in mid December. I met my friend Rachel at the start and we did a quick warm up before heading to our respective corrals.

I had no Garmin. I had no expectations. I was just going to run at what I thought was a ‘hard’ but comfortable race pace by feeling.

I was drifting off thinking to myself, “That woman did a lovely job with the National Anthem…” just as the gun went off.

It was super crowded and congested the first mile or two. There seemed to be a lot of speedsters out today. I later found out it was the last points race, so yes, quickest of the quick.

Somewhere around mile three, my pal Antonio popped up next to me! We run similar paces so we hung together for like 3-4 miles. It was great catching up with him. I asked him what his goal was and he simply said, “I don’t know… break an hour?” I thought to myself, ‘Yea, that would be cool for sure.’

We saw Abbe, Jeff and Maura running in the opposite direction and gave a wave.

I was slowing up a little and told Antonio to go ahead. I then passed and tried to encourage my friend and fellow teammate Daniel yelling, “Swing those arms!”

Approaching the finish I saw Josh, Randi, Chloe and a handful of other Gotham City Runners so I decided to ham it up for the camera.

I managed to break an hour after all!

Guess what is so crazy wild about my pace? It is the EXACT pace I am training at for the Paris Marathon!

Sex/ Age	Bib	Overall Place	Age Place	Finish Time	Pace/ Mile	AG %
M36	129	134	16	59:43	6:25	70.26%

RACE REPORT: 086 Ted Corbitt Classic 15K – 58:59

Posted on December 21, 2012 by admin

Posted in All, Fitness, Race Reports, Running 2 Comments

I love a good 15K mainly because its such a freakish distance! I think I have run 3 in the last 4 years or something. They teeter right on the edge of, “Should I train for this” and “It’s only 5 more K than a 10K, I’ll just wing it.”

In order to prepare for the run, I went to watch the Brooklyn Nets play the Pistons the night before in the new Barclay’s Center. Todd, Frank, Cottom and I met up at Smoke Shop (no, it is not a weed store) for some BBQ and beers. The place rocks if you are into ribs.

We easily entered Barclay’s at 7:30 and made our way to our seats. Let’s take a moment to discus Jay’s (Z) new stadium. Jay, hats off! What a fine piece of design it is, with a street level entrance right into the heart of the arena. No climbing stairs for an hour like The Garden. They also have local food vendors like Fatty Cue, Habana Outpost, and Brooklyn Burger! I love this concept.

Why do people in Brooklyn seem more friendly than in Manhattan?

Since this is a race report I wont dwell too much more on the game, but know this… BK Nets won by 2 in double overtime at the buzzer!

So of course we had to celebrate.

RACE DAY

I woke up after my 5 hours of beer fueled sleep feeling pretty beat up. Normally, I can rally but I think I may have caught this flu that’s popping around since I had a sore throat.

I geared up, didn’t eat anything, and jogged off to the Start. Blue Corral was already mobbed, so I just walked in and decided to hang in the back of it, especially since I wasn’t feeling too peppy.

Where the front of the Red Corral met the back of the Blue is where I bumped into Kelly! Hi Kelly. We hung out for a bit goofin’ off before we had to get serious. We also saw Dani off to our left who gave a wave!

The gun went off and I started running, but not too fast as I was behind a large group of speedsters. As we rounded the corner and headed into Cat Hill I flanked the pack on the right and started progressing forward through them. I thought I was going to take it easy but my competitive side always gets the best of me. I wasn’t wearing my Garmin (my new thing and I love doing it) so I was just running by feel. I kinda felt like quitting. In fact, the first 5 miles of the race I thought of ways to quit. My chest hurt and I was so very tired, but I had committed to a race…

I was slamming down water at every aid station. I normally never do this but I was quite parched. Maybe it was the salty barbeque I ate the night before or the 5 million beers or I was getting the flu? Who knows? I don’t, I’m no doctor!

Run, run, run, all I do is run.

By mile 4 we were in race formation, single file and were maybe cooking at a 6:30 pace. I would go on to play leap frog with a few tall fellows. The irony of it, was that I would overtake them on the downhills. You would think that with a larger gait and more body mass they would pick up speed? Maybe they were afraid of tumbling? I also saw Abbe (on her run) who yelled out to me!

As I passed Mile 6 I had entered the point of no ‘giving up’ as this is right by my apartment at Engineer’s Gate. My original plan was to just run off the course instead of doing 2 loops and go home and go to sleep. I must have missed my exit.

Coming down the west side of the Park I actually started to feel good. My pace was steady and my form was doing fine, I wasn’t smashing my legs down or anything like that. As a I turned in to finish I had this feeling of ‘maybe I should do a few more miles’! Then, I thought about sleeping and how wonderful that would be.

I ended up finishing in 58:59, a 24 second PR!

Sex/ Age	Bib	Overall Place	Age Place	Finish Time	Pace/ Mile	AG %
M34	125	65	22	58:59	6:20	70.4%

For the rest of the weekend I slept a lot and ended up wiping that wicked bug out of me. Maybe that ol’ 15K even helped!

QUARANTINE!

RACE REPORT: 070 Ted Corbitt 15K – 59:26

Posted on December 23, 2011 by admin

Posted in All, Race Reports, Running 1 Comment

How do you prepare for a 15K? Do you ever have those races where you know your plans the night before will be consequential to your performance? Me too. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

Friday night before the Ted Corbitt 15K was a blast. I left work to meet up with Abbe and her best friends Drew and Danielle at Tortilla Flats down in the West Village. SIDENOTE: Danielle and Drew were visiting from out of town, so racing took a back seat while eating and drinking the front.

Arriving at Tortilla Flats for guactails I was presented a celebratory shot of tequila. I had just heard about the Kompetitive Edge sponsorship and was beyond excited. From there (after a handful of margaritas) we went to Empillon, a fantastic new mexican restaurant. I proceeded to drink margaritas, but this time washed them down with spicy fish tacos. Very logical before a 15K, I know but… celebrate we must!

RACE DAY

I was up at 6:30AM (start was at 8AM) and fueling up with some Cafe Bustelo. My stomach was totally wonky and I had no desire to eat breakfast, other than being a bit ‘cloudy’ I felt okay to race.

On the way to Central Park I thought it wise to stop and grab a banana from a bodega even if I didn’t feel hungry. Looking back, I’m very glad I opted to eat something.

Up in my corral I quietly waited for the gun. Somehow I was toeing the start mat, which I didn’t plan on as there are loads of faster guys that will be passing me by. It was brisk out, maybe 35 degrees and sunny.

As the gun went off we all set off at a pretty manageable pace, a 15K pace I suppose you might say. I was not wearing a watch. My legs felt good, but not as good as when I did my speed workout 2 days earlier. Smooth move Baker.

The course was 2 loops of the Park, the 4 Mile followed by the 5 Mile extension. I hit Miles 1 and 2 at a 6:10 pace and knew I couldn’t hold it. This was my last race in the 9+1 series so I really just had to get it done so my stress levels were low. Coming up the East Side of the course at Mile 3 I saw my friend Alex (who was volunteering as Course Marshall). Other than Alex, I saw no other Runner Army personal which I found strange. The Park seemed lonely for the first time in a long while.

The second loop was less than stellar because I started burping up acid from the spicy food and margaritas. My chest was burning something fierce and I thought about quitting. Actually, I’m pretty sure I think about quitting during every race. I have never quit a race, and I wasn’t about to start. I thought about all the races I have completed where conditions were much worse or simply a greater challenge like a marathon and tried to dumb down this race mentally. Then, I started up with one of my mantras, ‘There is no pain, only glory’ which is kinda funny in a Braveheart meets 300 kinda way but it works.

I was pushing 6:30s the last few miles and fading pretty fast. My 15K PR was 59:23, but really I would be happy to finish under an hour. Making some calculations off the course clocks things looked good. As I was coming up to the finish (a straightaway followed by a left turn and another 20 meters) I saw the clock hit 59:00. I had 23 seconds to PR!

Moments like these are wild, because time actually seems to slow down, yet that clock keeps on ticking away.

Sex/ Age	Bib	Overall Place	Age Place	Finish Time	Pace/ Mile	AG %
M33	128	73	17	59:26	6:24	69.6%

I missed the PR by 3 seconds, but had finished under an hour. I was happy.

RACE REPORT: 012 The Boilermaker 15K: 59:23

Posted on July 12, 2009 by admin

Posted in All, Race Reports, Running 1 Comment

Sex/ Age	Bib	State	Overall Place	Gender Place	Age Place	Finish Time	Pace/ Mile	AG %
M31	816	NY	355/10584	329	33	59:23	6:23	69.4 %

Where do I begin?

This weekend was to mark my second running of the fabled Boilermaker 15K in Utica, New York.

Danny, Anna, her Aunt Essie and I rode up Saturday morning making few stops and getting to Utica in nearly 4 hours. Anna’s Mom’s side of the family is from here and that night there was a decoy party for her Grandma Ruth. Sunday after the race the siblings had arranged a large surprise party at a local restaurant so we had to convince her that this night was her actual birthday party.

We were staying at the Hotel Utica which is quite a cool place. It reminds me of prohibition era NYC. (i say that like I lived that era… i did not, but I am a history buff). After checking in we had a few drinks with Uncle Josh, his wife Katherine, Sasha and Max. SIDENOTE: Anna’s family is awesome and I know a lot of them quite well. They welcome all people into their homes and it is always a pleasure spending time with them. Next, we went to Grandma Ruth’s house for a delicious meal orchestrated by Uncle Josh. As a gift I had brought Grandma Ruth Champagne Truffles from Teuscher Chocolates which I believe are the best things in the world. I think she liked them. If you ever need to bribe me for anything these would do the trick.

The following morning Anna, Danny and I awoke at roughly 6:30AM to gear up for the race. I brought my own Cafe Bustelo to brew in the room which I did. Its really the best coffee ever and a race ritual.

We all parted ways at the start and made our ways to our respective corrals. I happened to be in the orange corral. With 15 minutes to spare I was fidgeting with my ipod when all of a sudden my friend Kevin Masse appeared! We were both totally shocked that we A, were running the same race outside of NYC and B, standing next to each other in a crowd of 11,000 people. Earth gets smaller and smaller it seems. We gave each other a little fist pound as the gun sounded and we were off.

Boilermaker is a really fun time even though there are some grueling hills. The entire town comes out and they have bands and all kinds of craziness. Aside from all the chaos, there is just a totally positive vibe coursing through the air. Its awesome. I like positivity they say.

Miles 1, 2 and 3 happened rather easily. As we made our way up ‘Heartbreak Hill’ (which is a winding path up a golf coarse) I had a little acid indigestion. I attributed this to me not eating my standard banana or two pre race. Stupid Baker, very stupid. So! I started hitting the water stations like crazy. This alleviated the issue and by mile 7 I was cooking. Along the way I saw… Role Call! Uncle David, Gibby, Dave, Anna, Grandma Ruth, Bev, Uncle Stevie and a few others. My friend Raina was there at mile 8 cheering her other friends but I didnt see her.

I got in the habit, starting at mile 7 or so, of clapping at the crowd and yelling and then they would all cheer back. It really fuels you and totally rules out the possibility of me stopping to take a walk break. As we came close to the 9 mile mark I saw that I was still in contention for breaking a 60 minute 15K so I started really pushing myself. As we came down the final stretch I was flying but was in total overload. I crossed at 59:40 but would later learn my chip time was 59:23. I had done it! I broke the 60 minute mark. I had also shaved 11 minutes off my time of 1:10 from last year.

When you finish the race they corral you in to the backyard of the Saranac Brewery. What does that even mean?! It means free beer all day. Questions? Yes, we had beer starting at 9AM. Yes, it goes down easy. Yes, its hydrating. I was actually drinking a gatorade when I found Kevin. We did some high five action and then he said ‘um where is your beer?!’ Peer pressure, I tell you. After having a beer with Kevin we split to find our respective friends.

Danny and Anna came in and met me and we all did some more high fives, then got more beer. and more beer. and more beer. There are bands playing so we watched them and then found a spot on the lawn to sit. They did and F15 fly over which totally kicked ass Top Gun style. ‘Maverick!… You can be my wingman anytime.’

At around 11 we made our way to the Hotel Utica to change for Grandma Ruth’s party.

It was a fantastic surprise. There were 80-100 of her friends and family at a classy Italian restaurant. A few of the siblings made speeches and we ate some amazing italian food. It was basically a flawless good time. We all left at 4 and caught a nap back the hotel. It was so needed. We then headed over to Aunt Tracy and Quinn’s house… aka… the afterparty.

They have a litter of 5 week old boxer puppies! (if anyone wants one they have 4-5 left for sale) and they are so cute!

We stayed there til 11 or so and then went to bed as we had to drive back the following morning.

We had a quaint breakfast with Dave and Gibby at our board meeting oak table basked in morning light and then made our way back to my Rome. We will be back next year and for many years to come Im sure. Thanks to all the great hospitality we received while visiting!