Prospect Park Track Club 5M Turkey Trot 2022

There isn’t really much point in writing a race report for a race that wasn’t actually raced, is there? To be fair, I didn’t race this last year either, but that was because I didn’t want to, not because I couldn’t. It is truly mystifying that I keep registering for races when I can’t run them properly, but here we are.

I didn’t bother to set an alarm, because really, would it be so terrible if I missed an opportunity to put on a shit show? Truly a pity, too, since the weather was great for running.

With this race, I generally try to start very close to the front so as to avoid the people who are taking the “trot” in “Turkey Trot” literally. But since this year, there were two waves, I assumed most of those trotters would be in the second, and I have no business being near the front of anything right now, so I started farther back than I would have in years past.

This, as it turns out, was a mistake. Because even in my current can’t-run-fast state, I wound up getting stuck behind people.

Of course, I had no intention of looking at my watch, since its feedback is useless to me when I can’t respond in any way. But I was wearing a heat sheet wrapped around myself at the start, and then I had to carry it until we reached a dumpster near the end of Center Drive. This was about half a mile into the race, maybe a little less; and when I turned my wrist to toss the heat sheet, I caught a glimpse of my watch, which told me my average pace thus far was 4:xx per mile. So it’s a good thing I hadn’t been planning on relying on that, I guess.

As expected, because of that wonky half mile, even though I do think the GPS sorted itself out after that, overall it was measuring long. I fully expected this to be one of my slowest PPTC Turkey Trots ever, maybe even the slowest — and I don’t think I’ve ever run over an 8:00 pace in all the years I’ve been doing this, so that’s an indication of just how shitty I feel these days. But I did try to rationalize that by telling myself that if I could run a marathon at sub-8 pace while feeling this way, I could manage it for five measly miles.

I just tried not to have everyone pass me like I was standing still. Which was a successful endeavor, I guess. Someone alongside whom I ran much of the race told me afterwards that I looked so smooth and relaxed, like it was easy for me. Well, yeah. I can’t run any other way right now. I would love to run a race deep into the pain cave, but since that will achieve nothing but make me hurt without a commensurate result, that would be dumb.

Garmin recorded 5.1 miles in 35:07, 6:53/mi. Obviously these splits are not at all accurate, particularly because Zoo Hill is in the third mile, and I would put money on the fact that that was actually my slowest. But I suppose it’s irrelevant.

Also, too bad I didn’t look at my watch at the final mile marker, because officially, I ran five miles in 35:05, 7:01/mi. 117/2382 OA, 22/1182 F, and 7/184 F35-39. I say that because a few measly seconds would have put me under 7:00/mi, but would I have been able to run that final mile six seconds faster? These days? Probably not.

This was my ninth time running this race. And my slowest since 2018, which I ran in 35:08. 2018, coincidentally, was a micro version of this year, in that I was inexplicably running like shit. I didn’t feel bad, I just couldn’t run well. And it didn’t last nearly as long as this current downward slide.

I have an appointment with the sports medicine doctor next week. Let’s see if that will enlighten me. I suspect it won’t.

TCS New York City Marathon 2022

At last year’s NYC Marathon, I felt like an impostor. This year, I didn’t just feel like one: I absolutely was one. Because even though I got lucky and managed to squeak out a marathon PR in May, my precipitous downward slide has continued to an even more exaggerated extent, and I more or less stopped racing since all it was doing was making me feel like total shit about myself (something with which I require no additional assistance). And the fact that I was fortunate enough to get a local competitive bib this year? Ha! (But really, I just wanted that for easier bathroom access, and I did get that. My first three [of seven] porta potty trips involved zero lines.)

Two weeks ago, I paid the piper for the past two and half years of relative good health and came down with a nasty, nasty cold. I’m not sure who said that a cold lasts for seven days, because I was just barely getting over the last of the congestion by race day.

And then the weather. To be quite honest, I was not at all upset about the forecast. I do handle heat relatively well, but I will concede that cooler temperatures will yield faster finish times. However, if I am not going to be able to run fast anyway, I see no reason why I would want to freeze halfway to death in the start village for a few hours before the start. Plus, the conditions gave me plausible deniability for a poor performance.

Not that I had any time goals, anyway. I suppose I am technically still chasing 3:05, but I just can’t run fast anymore — I can stick to that pace for a few miles, and after that, everything screeches to a halt. It’s not like I feel bad, per se. It just doesn’t seem to make a difference if I push myself really hard; my body refuses to move any faster. As such, I planned for a positive split. I expected to finish in around 3:15-3:20, which is different from saying I was aiming for that. Maybe I was for the first few miles, but after mile 7 or 8, I kind of stopped paying attention in an attempt to mitigate the level of misery.

The temperature was fine. The humidity, not so much… but since I was running relatively slowly, it didn’t feel as bad to me as it could have. The clouds in that weather widget are a lie; it was sunny for at least the first sixteen miles, because I remember feeling glad for the shady reprieve on the Queensboro Bridge (where my GPS went a little nuts, again). And then there were some raindrops in the Bronx, which was nice, particularly since up to that point, despite the nine misters NYRR claimed to have put out on the course (I only noticed one, in Central Park), most of the sweat on me was not actually mine. A lot of people, who are clearly heavier sweaters than I am (okay, that’s not super hard), were dripping so much that they were flinging sweat droplets everywhere. Or someone brushing up against me in passing left behind a damp souvenir. It is not the most pleasant experience.

I can only imagine how insufficient a cup containing roughly two tablespoons of liquid must have felt to those people, if I, who do not sweat like that, would have appreciated more. It felt like the fluid stations were sparser than in years past. Also, I would like to suggest that NYRR designate separate sides of the street for people who want to grab a cup on the go and people who don’t, because it is utterly infuriating — not to mention dangerous — when the person in front of you comes to a dead stop to drink.

Despite that, I still managed to take in five gels, which I am pretty sure is a record for me. Two of them were even caffeinated. And my digestive system didn’t stage an utter mutiny, which I am counting as a total win. Sure, the slower-than-ideal pace probably helped, and it did involve some pre-race Imodium and Pepto Bismol, but even so, this is about as good as it gets for me.

The other positive was that my knees didn’t give up the ghost. Last year they held on valiantly until Central Park, and the last 5K was agonizing. This year, they were perfectly functional when I crossed the finish line, which I’m fairly certain has never happened before. While I’d love to replicate that in future races, I don’t know that I can, since I haven’t the faintest idea why this change occurred.

Garmin recorded 26.18 miles in 3:21:50, 7:43/mi.

Officially, 26.2 miles in 3:21:47, 7:42/mi. 2330/47743 OA, 334/21160 F, and 70/2784 F35-39.

One of my slower marathons in quite a while, and even though that’s what I expected, it’s still a bit odd that I’m not more upset about it. I think I’m just too damn tired to be upset because I’ve done that so much, and I don’t know how to fix any of it, and I have no energy at all to even try.

But I did make an appointment with my sports medicine doctor, because I think my PCP just believes I am crazy since all the bloodwork looks fine, and thus I must be fine. I’m not really sure what the sports medicine doctor can tell me that my PCP can’t; I guess I have nothing better to do with my money than throw it at useless medical visits.

Particularly as the one thing that might make a little bit of sense (and only a little bit) is overtraining syndrome, but that’s kind of ridiculous since my volume is, and always has been, relatively low. It seems even more ridiculous if viewed as a result of under-fueling, because I am probably eating more than I ever have in my life, and I am hating every second of it; it’s a major delayed reaction if my body is protesting caloric restriction. A decade ago, it would have made sense for me to be dragging because of inadequate intake. Now… not so much. And the more I do drag while stuffing my face at every opportunity, the harder it gets to keep doing it, because what is the damn point?

I even did a proper carb load and everything for this race. One might argue that it was successful because I didn’t hit a wall, but then, I didn’t really ever hit one in previous marathons either. The only difference is that in those races, I didn’t start them feeling like I was already at the wall. You can’t hit it later if it was there right from the beginning. And I cannot begin to describe what an utter mindfuck it is, or what a huge toll it is taking on my mental state, to be doing everything right and be getting nothing in return. Well, not nothing. I am getting what is apparently unnecessary weight gain and a fresh new hatred of the way my body looks and feels. Which I’d be able to handle somewhat, if it came along with performance benefits. It seems to be having the opposite effect. And it really sucks that eating is something I have to do every day, multiple times a day, because my brain cannot handle that level of struggle on such a regular basis.

Photo by Marek Stępniowski
I look happy; I was not.