Today we have another guest photographer (my wife) bringing you images from my second race of the year. More importantly, I have an action shot PROVING that I indeed ran this race (in case there are any doubters out there…hmmm who could that be?). Last Saturday was the annual running of the Steamboat Classic in Peoria IL. They actually have multiple options to participate in. They offer the “World’s Fastest Four Mile” race and “Illinois’ Toughest 15K.” This race has been somewhat of a nemesis for me having initially injured my hamstring in the 15K race a couple of years ago which eventually led to a major injury during the following Bix7 race. Due to the rehab, I was forced to go with the 4 mile option last year, but this year I was back to defeat the 15K! My training went well and I was already at 10 mile runs before the race date. To cut to the chase, I man’d up and got me another medal for my slowly growing collection and another check on the Life List.
This was actually a pleasant surprise considering I almost pulled out of race 40 minutes before it started. To set the stage, I have a fairly regular routine the week before an actual race consisting of a nice taper down and a steady diet of bland food. For this race, I closed out my last 10 mile the Saturday before and reduced it to a 6 mile run that Monday. That Wednesday was my 3.5 mile easy run to complete the training program. For some reason the mechanics felt off on that last run even to the point I stopped and took my shoes off and put back on hoping something was amiss. That didn’t help much, but it got me through the remaining miles. While in the cool down my left hamstring developed a twinge that would not shake out. Panic set in (well, actually anger first and then panic). I went home and tried my best to rest it hoping it would disappear – to no avail. The rest of the week was spent trying to rub the strain out with a steady diet of a foam roller and anti-inflammatory cream used during my rehab. By Friday night it was feeling pretty good, but I was not about to test it until the race. On that same Friday I decided to go with a conservative hamburger lunch at a downtown street vendor followed up by the traditional home cooked carb loading spaghetti dinner that night. All was good until some pains started showing up in my stomach around 10pm. At midnight this turned into an all out evacuation on the hour until it was time to get up around 5. So there I was carb-deloaded and questioning whether I could actually keep anything in the stomach. Not wanting to throw the towel in yet (hell, I trained my ass off for this) so Linda and I headed down to the Peoria riverfront cautiously eating a couple of Eggos and gingerly trying to drink some Powerade. If there is one bright side in this, I really wasn’t thinking much about the hamstring. Eventually it came time to do the traditional pre-race picture. That would be a look of serious worry by the way.
Now, some of that worry was due to the upcoming 15K with limited fuel. The rest of that concern was the resulting composition for this shot. “Not that there is anything wrong with that”, but that guy in the poster .. the one with the shirt off and staring directly at me .. was creeping me out.
Hit the jump to read more about Steamboat Classic 2011
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