Monday, November 2, 2009

Javelina Recovery Run / Wed 11/4

Reminder: We are on for a group trail run in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve Wednesday morning 5:17 AM. Meet at the very top lot of Squaw Peak Drive past the main trail head of Piestewa Peak. Plan on a little over one hour at a slow to moderate pace. Headlamp needed for 3 quarters of the run. 63 degrees at kickoff with a full moon. Why sleep-in with those conditions?

Another Halloween, another Javelina Jundred 100 mile trail run in the books. With 250 starters and under 50% finishing, Javelina once again showed that running 100 miles in the desert is no simple task. Two WMRC'rs really toughed it out. Chip Gosewisch finished with a time of 24:34:26 and Debbie Leftwich completed her 5th Javelina battling chest congestion and a persistent cough that made her sound like a chain smoker. Jeff McCoy competing himself ran with Debbie the first 4 laps and Honey took over the rest of the way in what Debbie called a death march. She finished with a 102 fever. Additional congrats to Joanne Hughes for going under 24 hours (23:24:58) and Join Roig for also completing the death march!!

Costumes filled the grounds as The WMRC volunteers were also out in full force. Nick Coury once again wearing his "Karl Meltzer" costume paced the eventual winner Dave James from mile 75 to 90. With a time of 14:20:54 James smashed the previous record by over an hour even though he ran a 13:06 100 miles a month ago at the national 24 hours. Nick said Dave held back the last two laps because he wants to do well at the JFK in 3 weeks. Wow.
Joe Galope was also out pacing one of the leaders, Brenda Corona. Brenda was the 2nd female finisher and 9th overall with a time of 20:36:46. Joe said Brenda's system was to run 5 minutes and walk 1 minute after the intial 30 miles. This sounds better than Cosmas' system of walking 5 minutes and running 1 minute:>)
A big thanks to all the other volunteers and Jamil who runs one of the best 100 mile races in the country to great reviews!!
Are we really sure that was Candice working the Aid Station all night??? Thanks Candice if that was really you???

3 comments:

Joe said...

This past weekend I had the fortunate experience to pace Brenda Corona at the Javelina 100 mile run. She finished as the 2nd woman, and 9th finisher overall in a time of 20:36:46. What I found remarkable was not only her impressive finish, but rather the manner in which she accomplished it. This 48-year old unassuming lady from San Diego adopted a strategy that I had once read about years ago in Jeff Galloway’s Book on Running. However, through my 20 years of running marathons and ultra marathons, and having paced many people through several different 100-milers, I have never seen it successfully implemented. The strategy is this: Run 5-minutes, walk 1-minute, repeat. That’s it. She ran the first two laps at Javelina at a decent pace (2:40 & 2:45), then after that, she set her watch to beep at an interval of 5 min followed by 1 min. indicating when to run and when to walk (regardless of the terrain or incline). The watch she used was one of Nike’s running watches that has this functionality. The advantage this has is that it prevents the “blow up” factor on the long downhill or unable sections, forcing to take 1 minute breaks. These 1 minute breaks were still walking at a brisk pace, but giving the runner a reminder to also eat and drink. I started pacing her at 62-miles, and like clockwork: “beep-beep” time to run….”beep” time to walk. And we would pass people who were running the whole way. It was truly remarkable to see. The run pace was nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn’t sprinting or fartleks, it was just the normal running pace one would do at a 100-miler. It’s just that these one minute breaks kept the legs fresh. When we reached the last aid station at around mile 95, she turned off the watch and ran it all the way in. Here are her lap splits and her overall place at the end of each lap.

Lap 1: 2:40:42 (59th)
Lap 2: 2:45:07 (33rd)
Lap 3: 2:58:18 (23rd)
Lap 4: 3:09:29 (17th)
Lap 5: 3:22:46 (11th)
Lap 6: 3:32:03 (9th) Only 4 people ran lap #6 faster
Lap 7: 2:07:22 (9th) *9 miles

Think this strategy is a fluke? Brenda’s friend and training partner, Elizabeth Murphy did the same thing and took 4-hours off her time from 2007 finishing as the third woman and 11th overall in a time of 21:15:25.

Anonymous said...

Here's the scoop on the pic above of Debbie, Honey & Jeff...it was coming out after the 3rd loop...Honey sporting flip flops (paced Debbie from 62-100 later), Jeff eating pizza (actually gained weight during the race) and Debbie (who had a tough day) laughing about a detailed "crack-n-sack waxing" discussion to lighten the mood...good stuff!

Jon Roig said...

Joe... that's an awesome strategy and it makes perfect sense and all, but geez... that's a lot of beeping. I wonder if she's still hearing it, off in the wind. It's like when you play Tetris for a few hours and when you stop, you can still see the shapes moving around or something...

The dude dressed as a fox, who finished looking healthy in around 24, was doing a 25/5 run/walk thing. Also seemed to work... maybe not as beepy?

Anyway, for me... no strategy except eat and walk, totally a death march. (I got beat by Karsten!) Survived, though. Had a blast... that whole thing was just amazing.