8 TUFF MILES

8 TUFF MILES, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands 2/25/06

The first thing you need to know about the 8 Tuff Miles race is what the course looks like (see elevation profile at 8tuffmiles.com, and note that each line represents 200 feet). The second thing you need to know is that the Caribbean is a warm place. As everyone in NE learned in the summer of 2005, hills and heat are not a healthy mix. Fortunately, the race starts at 7:15 a.m., which is still warm, but considerably better than a noon start at Boston on a hot spring day.

Although I was down in the islands primarily on vacation, this race is quite a big deal on St. John (population 3,000), and some friends of ours had been spreading rumors about how I was going to win the race. When I researched the past results, it was obvious that the two-time defending champ, Jeremy Zuber was a solid runner. I’ve run a few hilly races, and when I saw he had averaged under 6:00 pace for 8.4 miles with 1400 ft of climb in the first 5.5 miles, I figured Jeremy was quite talented.

I arrived in St. John a week before the race, so I had plenty of time to check out the course. My cousins, Tim and Heidi Coyle, who own THE pharmacy on the island, actually live about 200 meters off centerline road, which traverses the entire island. While I was intimidated by the hills during my early training runs on the course, after I adjusted to the heat and the undulating roads, I figured I might be able to run close to 6:00 pace. After running sections of the first five miles of the race hard early in the week, I wrote down some predicted splits and a final time of 50:50. This was at least 45 seconds slower than Jeremy’s winning times, so I knew I would need some help from Jeremy to pull off the upset.

On race day, we were greeted with a nice, relatively cool morning. Among the 627 runners on the start line in addition to me were my cousin’s sons, Ian and Alex (11 and 12 years old, respectively), along with Steph and my Heidi. While I was anxious about racing for the win, Steph was worried about a troublesome hamstring, and Heidi was racing for the first time since her second knee surgery.
As the race started, I quickly worked my way into second place, but left a few steps between Jeremy and myself. I didn’t want him to thing I was pushing the pace this early in the race. As the race started to climb the major hills in the first mile, I was able to maintain the small gap between us. Our first mile was about 6:10. Although the first second miles look similar on the elevation map, the second mile feels much tougher. I ran this mile in 7:10, with Jeremy about 10 seconds ahead. Jeremy took advantage of the downhills in the third mile, and I had to work to keep him in range.

The fourth mile is the toughest of the 8.4 tough miles. Jeremy pushed the pace up the steep winding road, and I couldn’t risk increasing my pace that early in the race. I had never run the whole course, and wanted to make sure my legs were still functional on the last 2.9 flying downhill miles. By the time we reached the end of the climbing at 5.5 miles, Jeremy had about 45 seconds on me. It took me a little while to get my legs rolling on the steep downhill, and was disappointed with my split time of 5:20 from mile 6 to 7. My splits from 4-6 were 7:20 and 6:00. In spite of the rapidly increasing temperature, I tried to make up for lost time in the last 1.4 miles. Mile 7-8 passed in about 5:00, which made me realize I had a shot at running under 51 minutes. This realization resulted in pure agony for the end of the race. As you can see on the elevation map, you lose the advantage of the downhill during this section, and there is almost a bit of a hill right before the finish. I had to hammer all the way through the finish to creep under 51 with a 50:56. As far as I can tell, only three runners have run under 51 minutes. Jeremy, fueled by rumors that I was a serious contender, broke his old course record, running 49:20. He put about 45 seconds on me over the last 2.9 miles. Obviously, snowshoeing is not helping my leg speed!

Immediately upon finishing, I was interviewed by three print reporters and one TV reporter. It was really great to see such local interest in the event. As soon as I could, I made my way back up the course to cheer for Steph. She came screaming down the last hill in back of a group of women, and I was surprised to see her so early. In spite of her pledge to “just run it” it looked a whole lot like she was racing to me. She finished strong, and was soon followed by Alex, Heidi, and Ian. Alex had the race of the day, beating his previous time by 26 minutes! Ah, how I miss those days of knocking minutes off my bests! For his efforts, Alex was awarded a $500 scholarship for winning his age group.

All in all, it was a pretty good day for the Coyle and Nephew families, even though I didn’t live up to the pre-race rumors. Oh well, it gives me an excuse to return next year to give it another shot. Yes, it is 8 Tuff Miles, but it’s in St. John, which makes it well worth the effort.