2010 joe kleinerman 12 hour run: race report

the joe kleinerman 12 hour run celebrated its silver (25th?) anniversary this weekend. it was my second 12 hour run, and my second time running the joe kleinerman run. the 2010 edition was markedly drier than the last one, in 2008. that run included a race stoppage because of nasty mid-afternoon thunderstorm (which, on the positive side, led to a drop in the overall humidity). i barely reached 50 miles that year (terrible weather conditions plus a bout of anemia).

this time around the weather was fine. it sunny and warm (but most of the course was shaded and there was a nice breeze). my mileage target was 100k, just over 62 miles for the day. the macadam pedestrian loop in crochern park (bayside, queens) was 0.97 miles. the 50k split equalled 32 loops, 50 miles (50.5 actually) was 52 loops, and the 100k mark equalled 64 loops of the course. i hoped to run 6 loops an hour for most of the day, then slow to 5 (and probably 4) at some point.

i ran at a 7 loop per hour pace for the first 3 hours (reaching 21 loops in 3:01). because of the heat, i discarded my singlet after the first loop - and didn't put it back on until i reached 50 miles late in the day. i ran well for the first 25 loops and then began to feel the wall creeping up on me. i stopped to eat some avocado that i had brought to the race and kept in a cooler. even so, i found myself walking up the rise to the scoring area after the 25th loop.

i reached the 50k mark in just over 5 hours (5:01) - much sooner than i reached it in 2008 (5:52). but i just couldn't shake off the doldrums that hung over me. my pace dropped significantly during loops 33-38 and all i could do was push forward until i got a second wind. that came, thankfully, during loop 39 and carried me straight through to the 50 mile mark. my split for 50 miles, 8:57:11, was a pr! i was thrilled - and surprised, given the desultory string of loops between laps 25 and 38!

with 3 hours still to run, i had already reached my 2008 mileage (51.4). but the tables turned on me because after reaching 50+ miles, i hit another down patch. the high point of that stretch (between loops 53 and 58) was the root beer floats the richie had prepared for us! but, after walking a few loops (i had one loop that clocked in at 19 minutes and a second in 21 minutes during that stretch), a got another second wind. my last 5 full loops bounced between 9 and 12 minutes! i reached 63 loops before switching over to the short loop.

that loop, while just over 0.21 miles, included the only major climb on the course (and constituted half of the small loop)! i eked out 3+ small loops before richie blew the whistle at 12 hours. my unofficial mileage is 61.8 - less than half a mile shy of the 100k mark (62.2). given the roller coaster ride over the 12 hours, i was more than pleased with that mileage! the only downside to the day was the incredibly bad chafing i suffered through during the second half of the day :(

afterwards, richie had pizza set up for the runners. collectively, we devoured 12 pies in the blink of an eye! phil won the race - logging more than 78 miles in the process - and alicja took first place among the women. emmy (who ran just under 60 miles) won a sweatshirt in the post-race raffle! in a fun bit of trivia, my bib number equalled my age! and, in an it's a small world category, i met another 47 year old who runs ultras and blogs - seth - at the end of the day!

this is probably my last long run/ultra before the vermont 100 miler next month :D

here are my race photos.