Half-Assed Runner

Archive for the ‘5 Mile’ Category

Today was my first repeat race ever.  Last year I surprised myself by running 5 miles without stopping; something I never thought I would be able to do.  Since then I’ve run much further distances, but I still look back at that race as a huge accomplishment.

Dassel

The race takes place in a nearby city during an annual Labor Day festival.  My wife and I were running again this year.  Race day packet pickup was painless and quick.  For the second year in a row I managed to miss out on getting some caffeine in my system.  The smell of hundreds of chickens cooking (there’s a huge chicken dinner later in the day) and the scent of mini donuts reminded me that I had not eaten either.

Chicken roast

I knew the course well from running it last year plus running it a couple of times in the last few weeks as part of my 9 mile run.  The course starts on city streets then follows a paved trail before turning on to country roads.  Just before the 3 mile mark there is a huge hill followed by an equally huge descent.  Then comes the soul crushing ascent of Monster Hill.  Once you crest that sucker, there is no corresponding downhill.  You join another paved trail then finish up on city streets again.

My goal this year was to improve my speed.  I was very happy last year to finish under 10 minutes per mile.  This year I wanted to see if I could crack the 9 minute per mile barrier.  I had run a hilly 4 miler with 8:59/mile so I was hoping to get close to that on this race.

Lots of cornfields

The weather was a sunny and pleasant 68 degrees, but the humidity was high (82%) so I was prepared for a sweaty run.

The field was about the same size a last year, between 150 – 200 runners.  I started out faster than normal.  I wanted to make sure I was well positioned when I hit the trail portion as it’s hard to pass people there if there are any groups of side-by-side runners.  I knew I could use the two block downhill section early on to blast past some runners.  Knowing the course really helped me to runner a faster race.

I hit the trail and felt well positioned.  I was pacing off of a group of runners about 20 feet ahead of me.  There was a volunteer at the 1 mile mark with a stopwatch reading off the times.  I heard her say “twenty” as I passed.  9:20?  That seemed a bit slow.  Then Endomondo announced that I had clocked an 8:24 for mile 1.  I was happy with that time, but decided to dial it back a bit as I did not want to run out of energy, especially with the hills still coming up.

Hills ahead

I ran without music for most of the race.  I’ve started doing this more in races.  It lets me find a good rhythm and I can use music later on to give myself a boost.

There was a water stop around the 2 mile mark.  I probably could have skipped it, but did grab a cup.  Soon enough we were approaching the hills.  I took a couple of photos and a runner came up on my right.  He had run the race for the first time last year as well and we laughed about the crazy hills coming up.  I was going to pace off him, but he slowly kept pulling ahead of me.  He was the only person to pass me after the first water stop.

The first hill is actually more of a beast.  It climbs 120 feet, but does it over 1.2 miles.  Monster Hill “only” climbs 90 feet, but does so in .12 miles.  I powered through the first hill and felt fine.  I used the steep downhill to rest a bit.  There was a water stop at the bottom of the hill.  They were once again handing out ice-cold mini water bottles at this stop.  I planned to take one and carry it for the rest of the race.  Unfortunately, in an effort to help runners, they had removed the caps.  I drank as much as I could and poured the rest down my back to cool me off.

Monster Hill

I started my music and began ascending Monster Hill.  Last year I crested this beast without stopping, but I was barely moving when I got to the stop.  I made it up 90% of the hill before I walked the last bit.  I still had plenty of legs, but my heart was pounding.  I decided to eat a 16 second walk and try to make it up on the flat last mile.  I was doubtful I would break the 9 minute mark as my last two miles were 9:33 and 9:43.

I got on the trail and decided to pick up the pace.  At this point there was a guy about 20 yards ahead of me and I quickly picked him off.  I saw a group of 3 women in the distance and concentrated on closing the distance.  I end up passing them with about a quarter of a mile to go.  I passed another woman soon after.  There was another guy ahead of me, but he was too far ahead to catch before the finish.  But then he took a walk break and I was able to pass him on my final sprint.  I looked up to see the clock just pass 44 minutes.  I figured that the clock was off by a minute or so as there was no way that I could have broken 9 minutes per mile by that much time.  I looked at my splits and my last split was a 7:35.  WTF?  That’s by far my fastest mile ever.  I didn’t start my sprint early enough to account for this fast of a finish.  I normally would suspect the GPS being off, but the mile announcements were really close to the mile markers on the course including the mile 4 marker.  Maybe the course was a bit short, but both my wife’s GPS and mine agreed that it was 5 miles.

Red Rooster Finish

I grabbed a bottle of water and waited for my wife to finish.  One of the women I passed near the end was approaching the finish line and she looked like she was in a bad way.  I had noticed when I passed her that she looked wobbly.  Now she looked like she was leaning back as far a possible.  She had slowed to a hobble and at one point looked like she was going to fall over.  Another runner was by her side and waiting to catch her if she fell.  She made it over the finish line without toppling.  It looked like she was having an issue with her lower back.

I cheered my wife to the finish.  She had a good race as well.  She improved on last year’s time and did not walk at all.  We left soon afterward to get started on BBQ and beer.

Red Rooster shirt

Red Rooster course

Tonight was the fifth and final race in the 2011 Lifetime Trail Series.  Tonight’s run was in Elm Creek Park Reserve near Maple Grove.  Since the course was near my work, I left from there.  Even though I was less than 10 minutes away, I managed to just barely make it to the race on time.

I drove to the park and followed the large Lifetime signs with arrows on them.  This is a nice touch, especially in a spacious park like Elm Creek.  There were two large parking lots near the start of the race…both of which were full.  Runners had started parking off the side of the road and my late arrival was actually a bit of a blessing as I was able to get a spot directly across the road from the registration area.

I got into the registration line at 6:20, only 10 minutes before the start of the race.  I was pre-registered and soon I had my bib.  I was given the choice of a tshirt or a hat.  The hats were nice (and very popular), but I went with the dark shirt as I wanted it to match the light one I got at the last trail run.

I stashed the shirt and all non-essentials in my car and went for a quick pre-race jog.  The weather was a pretty chilly 54 and since sunset was set for about 7:10 it’s going to be quite a bit colder before I’m done running (the temps dipped to 48 degrees at the end of the run).  I wore shorts and a long sleeved tech shirt.  I was debating whether or not to throw on a light jacket.  I decided to skip the jacket, which turned out to be a good idea as I was drenched in sweat by the end of the run.

We lined up for the start of the race.  The race director advised us about some of the course details.  I had checked out the course on Monday so I knew that we would be mostly on cross country trails with a .75 mile portion on a paved trail.  The hills were much more mild than the beasts on the Carver run.  They were mostly rolling hills and not too steep.  Most of the trails contain a very narrow single track bike trail of packed dirt.  To take advantage of the single track, runners would need to run single file and run on a tightrope for a lot of the trail as the tracks were only about six inches wide over much of the trail.  Oh, and one more advantage compared to the Carver trail: no horse shit.

The race director advised that the trail had been measured at 5.2 miles.  The trail I mapped out on Monday was over 6 miles (including some of my wrong turns).  They had obviously trimmed the 5.75 mile loop from last year’s race.

The horn sounded and we were off.  As usual, I had positioned myself in the back 20% of the field.  The initial portion of the run was mostly downhill and I found myself unable to hit my pace, so I started passing runners.  I ended up passing more runners than usual and by the .5 mile mark Kinetic announced a pace of 9:04.  That’s fast for me on a paved course, it was much faster than I’m used to running on a trail (the trail usually adds 1.5 – 2 minutes to my average pace).  Still, my legs felt great, the weather was perfect, and I knew that there were no monster hills ahead of me, so I kept up the pace.  I was a little worried about burning out, but my goals for this race were simply to finish and to avoid the tons of walk breaks I used at Carver.

I had switched back to Kinetic for this race as I’ve been pretty unimpressed with Runmeter’s GPS accuracy lately.  Kinetic measured the miles short, it would announce a mile marker shortly before the mile marker would appear on the course.  This is exactly the opposite of Runmeter’s behavior.  On mile 5 though, the mile marker showed up before Kinetic announced it.  Kinetic measured the 5.2 mile course at 5.23 miles, so I’m still impressed by it’s GPS accuracy.

Mother Nature reached out and reminded us that this was indeed a trail race:  a runner ahead of me tripped and fell on the trail.  He was on his feet quickly and uninjured thankfully. 

At the 1.6 mile mark, I took my first walk break near the top of a hill.  I had been attacking the hills, but this sucker was the last of three successive hills and I needed a breather.  This also gave me the opportunity to fall behind a group that I had been pacing.  They were too fast for me on the flats, but I would end up passing them going up or down hills.  I didn’t want to keep "rubberbanding" with them.  I took a quick breather and started running again.

At this point I was alone.  I decided to kick my pace down a notch.  I was about 2 miles in and still running around 9:30.  I dropped down to a pace above 10 minutes and continued on.  Of course, this meant that I ended up getting passed by a dozen or more runners over the last 3 miles, but I was cool with that.  I would occasionally pace behind some of these runners and that kept my legs pumping.  5 miles is still a long run for me.  The weather and the (albeit passing) familiarity with the course meant that I was never super tired, but I did take a few strategic walk breaks, but kept them all to around 10 seconds.  I only took 2 of them on hills.

Around the 3 mile point we started the paved trail portion of the run.  This is where most of the runners passed me.  For whatever reason, it seemed like I actually slowed down on this part of the course.  My feet went slightly numb.  This has happened to me before and, as usual, it cleared up within a half mile.  We ran over a long wooden bridge and past the disc golf course.  Near the end of the trail we hit the only water stop.  I grabbed a cup of water and walked through the stop.  A number of the runners ahead of me did the same, so when I started running again I was in a small pack of runners.  I stuck with them for the rest of the race.

I made one attempt to race ahead of the pack.  Just before the 5 mile mark, I decided to increase my pace and see if I couldn’t get ahead of the dozen runners in the pack.  My idea seemed brilliant…until I hit one of the last hills.  I had to take an embarrassing walk break to catch my breath.  Nothing like racing past a group of people only to have them pass me as I walked with my head down, wheezing, at the top of a hill.

The sun had just set prior to the end of the race.  There were some pretty dark, tree covered patches on the last mile of the race.  There were a few bits (including the paved trail) that were lit.  I assume that these lights are there for the cross country skiers.  The dark spots were manageable, but I did keep a heightened eye out for anything that I might trip over.

There was one more hill right before the finish line.  I looked up and saw 53 minutes on the clock.  I stopped Kinetic and saw that I had run 5.23 miles in 53:18.  I was pretty happy with the 10:12 pace even though I had toyed with trying to trim that to under 10 minutes.  I had a shot at doing that, but my humiliating hill walk ended that pipe dream.  Oh well, I had a much better run than I did at Carver.

Lifetime has a ton of post-race food available.  I grabbed a slice of pizza, some water, and an energy bar.  As I was a sweaty beast and the temps were now in the 40’s, I finished my pizza and took off.

I really liked this course and really like the Lifetime Trail Series.  Next year I hope to hit all five of the runs and improve on my performances from this year.  I am definitely going to do a LOT more hill work.  I have two more trail races left this year (Autumn Woods Classic and Timberdash) but they are both 5Ks and will not be as challenging as the Lifetime courses.  I’m also getting better at long runs.  5 miles now feels to me like 5K felt mid-summer: challenging, but very "doable".

I ran five miles.  Let me restate that: I JUST RAN FIVE MOTHER-JAMMIN MILES.  

I started out the day doing what I do most mornings: running late and pissing off my wife.  The race was in a nearby city (if you want to stretch the definition of city) and started at 8:30.  We had preregistered and it’s a small event, so I was not in a hurry to get out the door to get there early.  Unfortunately, I had no idea where the run was starting other than “at the ballpark”.  We rolled into the registration area to pick up our bibs and shirts just in time to hear “runners…five minutes”.  I ran the shirts back to our car while my wife went to the bathroom (not before shooting me the stink eye for being late).  I jogged back to the car.  By the time I got there, I was wheezing.  WTF?  Here I am getting ready to run five miles (which is still a long ways for me) and I’m winded after jogging a few hundred yards?  I jogged about halfway back to the starting area, walking the rest so as not to be breathing heavy.

We lined at the very back of the field.  There looked to be about 150 – 200 runners.  Just before the start about a third of those runners filtered out as they were running the 1 mile fun run, which would start after the 5 mile run began.  This run was part of Red Rooster Days and there was a runner dressed up as a big, red rooster.

The race director made an announcement over a bull horn.  I could only understand about 10% of his words.  I did hear “big hill near the finish” and a number of the runners groaned.  Shortly after, a gun fired and we were…standing still.  Someone had fired a gun, but it was not the race director.  I thought it was a well played joke and something that would probably not happen in Minneapolis.  Soon after, a horn sounded and we were off.

Since I was in the very back of the pack and I was starting slower than normal (plus the run started on wide streets), I didn’t have to do a lot of zig-zagging and passing over the first half mile.  I pretty quickly fell into a pace and ended up in a pocket of runners with whom I would stay for most of the race.

My goals for this race were to finish and to try to break 55 minutes.  I have only run 5 miles or more a half dozen times in my life.  This distance to me is what I imagine a half marathon is to most runners: a challenging, but “doable” distance.  I was buoyed with some confidence because I’ve been doing long runs over the last few weeks.  My most recent long run was 8 miles and my fallback long run (every other week) is 4 to 4.5 miles.  So I’ve had some practice with longer runs and 5 miles doesn’t seem like some unobtainable distance anymore.  Of course, I’m using the Galloway run/walk/run method on these long runs, so my times are far from blazing.  I intended to use the same method on this run (I run .5 miles then walk briefly) but I was hoping to not start the walk breaks until at least 1.5 miles into the run.

The weather was beautiful.  It was in the mid fifties.  Much cooler than any race I’ve run so far.  The sun was out, but for whatever reason we were enjoying an October morning in early September.

The first mile was a bit tricky.  My body slowly woke up.  I’m a caffeine addict and had planned to grab some gogo juice in a can on the way to the run.  My tardiness crushed that plan.  I managed to down a large glass of coffee with ice cubes.  Even though I crave caffeine, I’ve stopped drinking coffee.  I’m not sure why, I just don’t enjoy it much anymore (except in the winter).  I could feel the coffee sloshing around in my stomach as I ran.  Wonderful.  While I wasn’t exactly struggling, I was not feeling as well as I normally do at the start of a run.  I kept thinking, “this is not your day”.

The run spilled onto a paved path and even if I had wanted to pass my pacers, I would have had trouble as they were taking up the entire path.  A few runners eventually did pass them but they maintained their running wall.  At the 1 mile mark there was a race volunteer shouting out split times.  All I heard was “minutes” and then “4, 5, 6, 7…” as I ran past.  I had begun the race without listening to my iPhone (I was trying out new headphones (earbuds) and they were a pain to put in while running) for the first bit of the race and had not heard my pace from Runmeter (it announces it every .5 miles) so I had no idea how fast I was running.  It felt like I was running a 10 minute or slower pace.  Soon after, Runmeter announced that I was running at a 9:28 pace.  That was faster than I thought and made me feel pretty good.  I wanted to “bank” time early in the race so I could counteract my slow pace and walking on the back-end of the run.

We made a left off the path and onto a rural highway.  Around this time (1.25 – 1.5 miles in) I was still feeling a little shaky, but running much better.  I had hit a sweet pace and was mentally digging in for the remainder of the run.  I decided then that I would walk at the first water station at the 2 mile mark and start my run/walk/run strategy at that point.  The runners had all spread out at this point.  I was still pacing behind a group of five runners.  We started on a slight downhill and something happened to me that has never happened before in a race: I felt great.  I was out running on a beautiful day with cornfields and forests around me and I was feeling strong and running at an enjoyable pace.  I wasn’t stressed out at all and I was confident of reaching my goals.  I decided to scrap the run/walk/run plan and run as far as I could without stopping. 

As I approached the water stop at the 2 mile mark, I decided to run through it.  I wasn’t thirsty at all and I knew that there was another water stop at the 4 mile mark.  The pack became a little jumbled and I actually passed a few people that were walking though the stop.  I lost one of my pacers, but she sprinted back to regain her spot (she was running with a friend).  I was still feeling good and since I usually break down and walk at the 2 mile point, I decided my next goal was to try to run until at least the 3.1 mile point.  This would be the equivalent of running a 5K with no stops – something I’ve only done once before.

Just before the 3 mile mark, we hit the first of the big hills.  It was a long, brute of a country hill.  I knew that I would need to conquer it if I wanted to reach my 5K goal, so I powered through it.  I passed a runner on the way up the hill.  This would be the last runner I would pass until the end of the race.  At the top of the hill there was a family cheering on the runners.  There were actually quite a few locals doing the same along the course.  Pretty cool support for a small race.

I was going to make my 5K goal.  At that point, I decided that my next goal would be to run until at least the 3.5 mile mark.  The longest I’ve ever run without stopping is about 3.25 miles.  I was still feeling pretty good (that hill did take a bite out of my butt) and wanted to use this good mojo to set a personal record.  The course was flat for a short while after the big hill then it took a sharp downhill dive.  I was thanking the running gods for the downhill but soon started cursing them when I saw that this downhill was just before a hill that made the last one look like a speed bump in comparison.  

Normally I lean slightly forward on downhills and let gravity do its magic.  I actually kept the brakes on for this downhill because I didn’t want to fly past my pacers only to have them pass me on the monster hill.  My goal was to get as far up this hill as possible without walking.  I remembered the race director stating that there was a big hill at the end of the course so I figured since this hill (we were around the 3.5 mark at this point) was not mentioned, that the next hill would be even bigger.  I had reached my 3.5 mile goal and was resigned to the fact that I would be walking a portion of this hill.  Just before the incline started we reached the second water stop.  I was going to walk through this one, but they were handing out small bottles of water.  I was able to complete the aquatic baton exchange with the race volunteer and kept running (at a slower pace) through the water stop.  I wasn’t very thirsty and I was only at the 75% level of complete sweat drenching, but I figured that I would drink a bit of the water and then save the rest for my inevitable hill walking stage.  The water was really cold.  I managed to down about a 1/4 of the small bottle.  Then I did something I don’t normally do: I tossed it to the side of the road.  I’m the chump that normally crushes his paper cup and stores it in my pocket rather than throwing it into the grass.  I couldn’t do that with a plastic bottle so my water bottle joined its other abandoned buddies on the side of the road.

On to the monster hill.  With the downhill portion and the water stop, our small group had bunched up again.  There were the two women running together, followed by a woman in red, and then me.  We started up the hill.  In my head I heard “slight forward bend, head up, keep your pace but shorten your stride”.  I have to hand it to the two women in front of me, they powered through this hill without losing their stride or pace.  I kept chugging and actually swung to the left to pass the lady in red (yes, that stupid song jumped into my head) in what would have been the slowest passing move in history.  I was not able to pass her, so we paced each other side by side for the last 1/4 of Mt. Everest.  By the time we hit the top of the hill we were both chugging along a speed at which a tortoise would have screamed at us for being too slow.  I fell in behind her again and for the first time in the race, I felt tired.  

The race continued on another path.  At this point, it was just me and the lady in red.  The two friends had crushed the hill and were quite a ways ahead of us at this point.  I could not see anyone behind me.  I continued at a slow pace and eventually felt a bit of energy return.  The splits were written on the pavement along with words of encouragement.  “4 miles. Way to go! Almost there!”  I had run further than ever before with no stops and I had conquered two big hills to get here.  I knew that there was a monster hill waiting for me before the end of the race, but if I could keep my legs moving I might have a shot at running the entire 5 miles.

Shortly after the 4 mile marker, Runmeter chimed in with my pace.  I was at a 9:58 pace.  Those hills (that last one was about .5 miles long) had eaten into my pace.  I decided that my new goal was to finish the run in under 50 minutes – damn the upcoming hill.

I paced behind the lady in red until about the 4.5 mile point.  We were near the start of the race.  In fact we were pretty much perpendicular with the ballpark.  The rest of the route just ran back to the starting area in a loop through nearby neighborhoods.  This meant no monster hill was possible.  The hill at the 3.5 mile mark must have been the beast described by the race director.  Holy crap!  I only had to run another half mile over flat pavement to complete this race.  I had vowed that I would not blow by the lady in red near the finish line since I had been using her as a pacer, but nothing was stopping me from passing her with this much real estate left to the finish line.  I passed her and quickened my pace slightly.  I had no idea what my time was at this point, but I wanted to beat 50 minutes for the race.

I was completely alone at this point.  I followed the race markers through a few turns in a residential area.  Finally I made a right and could see the finish line.  I picked up my pace some more and surprised myself by sprinting full out for the last 100 yards.  I glanced at the clock and saw 48:30 as I finished.  I had done it.  I had run five miles without stopping and I had done it in less than 50 minutes.

I grabbed a water and waited for my wife to finish.  She is a slow runner, but she has no problem running long distances.  She hasn’t been running much this summer and I figured that she would finish in the 55 – 60 minute range.  She surprised me by finishing about 5 minutes after me.  She told me that she walked twice – which is not normal for her – once at the first water stop and once on the monster hill.  She also told me that during the first half mile or so she noticed a car behind her.  She was getting pissed off that some stupid driver was driving on the race route until she realized that this was the “sweeper car”.  She was the very last person in the race.   She didn’t end up in that position, but it was the first time she had started so far back in the pack and at such a slow pace.

I had a very good time on this run.  I set a couple of personal records.  I know that I am capable of running 5 miles without stopping, so in future 5K runs I can use this knowledge to win the mental battle and keep my legs moving when my mind wants to stop.