Half-Assed Runner

Archive for the ‘5K’ Category

Sisu is a Finnish term loosely translated into English as strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity. However, the word is widely considered to lack a proper translation into any language. Sisu has been described as being integral to understanding Finnish culture. The literal meaning is equivalent in English to “having guts”, and the word derives from sisus, which means something inner or interior. However sisu is defined by a long-term element in it; it is not momentary courage, but the ability to sustain an action against the odds. Deciding on a course of action and then sticking to that decision against repeated failures is sisu.

– Wikipedia

I signed up for this race quite a while ago.  I’m not sure what drew me to the race: the setting (Wirth Park), the fact that it was a trail race (at a time when I had not run any trail races), or maybe that it was taking place on a unique date (9/10/11).  When I signed up for it, I did not have any races scheduled around it.  Fast forward a couple of months, and this race turns out to be the 3rd race within 5 days.  I ran the Red Rooster 5 mile race on Monday, the Lifetime Trail Series Carver Park 5 mile trail run on Wednesday, and was now ending my busiest race week with this run, described as “A wooded and challenging 5 kilometer (3.1 mile) course.”

Vendors

After getting my ass handed to me on the Carver Park trail run, the thought of tackling another trail run was far from enticing.  I seriously contemplated skipping this race, but it was a nice day and I had already paid to run, so I headed over to Wirth Park to pound this sucker out.

Theodore Wirth Park

The website and subsequent email notice warned about parking issues.  It turns out that the big parking lot near the race course is under construction.  It was strongly suggested that runners bike or walk to the park.  I live about 30 miles away, so this was not an option.  Consequently I got the park around 8:30 am, an hour and a half before the 5K began to (hopefully) get a parking spot.  It turned out that the event was allowing people to park on the grass close to the starting area, so parking was not a problem (as long as you didn’t mind a little “off road” action).

Parking

After parking I walked to the registration area.  We had been mailed postcards with a bar code on it that the volunteer would scan.  The scanners were not cooperating, but even so, registration was quick and painless.  I scored my swag bag (pretty cool stuff) and t shirt.  I walked back to my car, stowed my gear, and pinned on my bib.  Now I just had to kill 1.25 hours.  Luckily, walking around Wirth park on a beautiful morning is a great way to kill time.

Wirth Park

I eventually wandered to the starting area.  There was a lot of stuff going on.  There was a nice collection of vendors as well as a number of races already taking place.  There was a half marathon and “Nordic Walk” already in progress.  I was running the 5K, which would share a 10 am starting time with a 13.1K race.  Yes, I typed that correctly.  I’m not even sure what to call that race?  A half-marathon poorly converted to kilometers?

Start

As the start time approached, I took a 5 minute jog to get warmed up on the trails near the start of the race.  There were definitely going to be some hilly areas on this run.  I followed the runners with the red 5K bibs to the starting area.

Start

The starting area is the only real complaint I have with this race.  The race started on a paved trail about 6 feet wide.  Between the 13.1K and 5K, there were about 250 runners crammed onto the trail.  A lot of them (myself included) were standing outside of the paved trail.  Once the race began, the flow of runners had to squeeze together to get everyone on the trail and moving.  Needless to say, it was a slow start.  I positioned myself in my usual back 20% position and did not start actually running for a good 2 minutes after the race started.  This brief jogging period came to an abrupt end when the course turned left off of the paved trail and onto a dirt trail.  The trail went up a hilly area right away.  Everyone started walking again.  It was impossible to pass anyone.  Once the trail widened out a bit, I started passing as many people as possible.  I generally don’t try to run fast up hills, but in this case it was the easiest place to pass people, so I powered up the early hills just to pass runners and try to create some space.

Even this strategy was flawed.  Once we hit the single track trails, it became impossible to pass once again.  The trails were very narrow (as single tracks are wont to be) and passing would mean running though waist high foliage.  There was also a beautiful single track area that wound up a large hill.  Everyone was walking at this point.  Not because the hill was super steep, but because all of the runners were clumped together on the trail and the trail was right on the edge of the steep hillside.  Trying to pass would most likely result in a nice tumble down the hill.

This was definitely not a run to PR on.  While I was not happy to be crunched together single-file walking, I did welcome the involuntary walking breaks.  I did have a runner try to pass me at one point.  A younger runner (I would guess around 12) tried to pass me on my left.  The combination of no room to pass plus him being exactly tall enough that when he fell trying to do so that he ran into my elbow made for an ugly scene.  I helped him up, which meant stopping and subsequently stopping everyone behind us.  I felt bad for the kid, but could not understand how the hell he thought there was room to pass.

Other than the extreme congestion, there were plenty of cool parts of the run.  This was very much a trail race.  There were woods, streams, mud, roots, rocks, fields, and hills galore.  There was even a point where you ran through a muddy area and then had to duck through a hole cut out of a metal fence. I didn’t realize there was a choice of bypassing this (I saw the sign but did not understand it):

At one point on the course, the path diverged with two signs pointing to “ick” and “no ick”. “Ick” was through a sinking muddy sludge pool, and “no ick” involved ducking and running through the bramble and log debris to the right of the mud; the choice was yours.

Eventually we hit an open field area on the backside of a school campus.  At that point the runners could finally spread out and start passing other.  I kicked my pace up a notch here so that I could get ahead of as many runners as possible before hitting the trails again.

After this point, the trails were wide enough to accommodate the runners.  There were a bunch of small to medium hills, with a couple of larger hills.  I ran most of the hills, but did walk a couple of them.  I ran the biggest of the bunch, but actually ended up walking a bit of the downhill because I was so winded and the downhill portion was pretty winding and steep.

Second Half Hill

Runmeter must have been having GPS problems, because it nearly a half mile off of the actual distance.  It measured the 5K course at 2.78 miles.  This also meant that it was telling me that I was running 13+ minute miles.  I was running slow, but not that slow.

There was one point where the 13.1K runners and the 5K runners split.  This was confusing and a number of the 13.1 runners went the wrong way.  The volunteers did manage to get them turned around, but they did not look happy about the wrong turn.

The water stop came pretty late in the run (around the 2.8 mile mark) and there were cups of water and “blue stuff”.  I grabbed a cup of the blue stuff.

The final bit of the run was on paved trails.  I was pretty wiped out and knew that my time was going to be well north of 30 minutes so I didn’t try to kick it down on the last stretch.  Plus with Runmeter so off on the distance, I really wasn’t sure how much further I had to run.  One dude tried to pass me at the end but my inner asshole was stronger than his and I sprinted to finish before him.

I had no idea what my finish time was.  When I crossed the finish line, I was too sweaty for my iPhone.  I wasn’t able to stop the timer on Runmeter.  There was a digital clock, but it was still showing the time for the half marathoners.  I know I ran the race slowly, but I was pretty sure that the 1.5 hours on the clock was not correct.

Finish Area - Clock was for 1/2 Mary

All in all, this was a tough, but pretty fun run.  I felt a lot better about my performance than I did at the Carver trail race.  I’m still a long ways from being a trail runner.  I did end up in the top 50% of runners even with my 33 minute run.  That’s pretty good for me, though I can’t help but think I could have done much better if I would have been able to pass other runners in the first half of the race.

There was plenty of after race food and drink.  In the swag bag we received a wooden nickel which you could redeem for a beer.  I grabbed a banana and drank a lot of water (it was in the mid 80s and very humid by the end of the run).

Swag

The only problem I had was when I was driving out of the makeshift parking lot.  Some late arriving car drove in while I was trying to get out.  I had no choice but to take a right and let him in.  I drove down the between the rows of cars, but they were parked all the way to the end, so I would have had to reverse all the way back to get back to the exit.  Instead I drove to the end of the rows and onto the street.  Unfortunately this meant dropping over a curb.  I cursed as I heard the bottom of my car scrape on the curb.  I drove home and found no damage.

I found the Finn Sisu trail race to be challenging, yet fun and beautiful.  The race was very well run and there were plenty of volunteers.  I would suggest starting the run on a street for the first .25 mile at least to allow runners to spread out and hit their pace before hitting the (very narrow) trails.  If you’re running this race I would suggest starting further up than normal and starting out faster than normal to get some space.

Wooden Nickel

T Shirt - Front

T Shirt - Back

Route

If a PR falls in a race and no one records it…

God I hate 6am…especially on a Sunday.  I got up, showered, and made sure that my son did the same.  We headed south to participate in the race for a nearly unpronounceable German "founders festival".  I was running the 5K and the Monkey was running a 1/2 mile kids run.

The weather was very nice.  55 degrees with a light, intermittant breeze.  For some reason the humidity was at 96%.  It definitely did not feel that humid.

There was a pretty good turnout for the run.  So much so that the start was delayed (only about 5 minutes) to allow everyone to finish registration.  I had pre-registered so this was not a problem.  The race shirts were nice, funky green (white for kids) technical shirts.  The race was chip timed using B-tags (the "chip" is in the bib and is disposable) and the bibs were printed with the race name.

I had no expectations for this run.  I was just hoping to have a fun run and that my son have the same experience.  I lined up very near the back once again.  After a nearly inaudible announcement by the race director, the starting pistol was fired and we were off.  I waited until I actually crossed the starting line to start RunMeter.

The first mile went by quickly.  There were at least two nice downhill sections.  On the second of these, I passed about 20 runners by blasting down the hill on the left.  Of course, I slowed up substantially as that hill lead right into another incline.  The splits were well marked with large, white mile markers.  Shortly after passing the first of these, RunMeter announced (it always seems to measure long miles) that my pace was 9:02/mile.  Looking at my splits after the run, it was actually 8:59/mile.  Another RunMeter idiosyncracy is that it announces the splits slower than it actually measures them.  Anyhoo…I was flying.  Well, flying is relative when talking about my slow ass.  Still, my first sub-9 minute mile.    This was also accomplished with the usual glacial start and jockeying for position.

Mile 2 was a bit up and down.  I settled into a slower pace and picked a runner to follow.  I had (as usual) forgetten my heart rate monitor.  I would have been interested in seeing my heart rate because I felt pretty relaxed (as much as I ever am during a run).  We got out of the downtown area and I saw the water stop up ahead.  Right behind it was a big ass hill.  The course description mentioned "two or three challenging hills".  I walked through the water stop.  After about 15 seconds of walking and drinking, I started up the incline.

The hill was long, but the climb was not too steep.  As this was an out and back course and I could see some of the faster runners coming down the hill in the other direction, I started looking for the turnaround.  I have RunMeter set to announce every half mile.  The last announcement I remembered was at the 1 mile mark which seemed to have been at least 5 minutes ago, so I was waiting for the 1.5 mile announcement which generally coincides very closely with the halfway (turnaround) point.  This was the only part of the race that sucked.  I looked ahead and the turnaround was at the top of the hill.  I reached the turnaround and decided that I must be running very slowly because the time between the 1 mile mark and the 1.5(5) turnaround point seemed to be closer to 10 minutes than the 5(ish) minutes I expected.  I reached the top of the hill and took my second, short walk break before hitting the second half of the run.  I looked at RunMeter and it showed 1.89 miles.  WTF?  Not only had I missed the 1.5 mile announcement, but it looked like my 3.1 mile run was going to be close to 4 miles.

My mind went back to the race director’s announcement.  Although I couldn’t hear most of it, I did recall him saying that the turnaround point had been moved back 20 meters to make it a "true 5K".  After running a long 5K last weekend, I was sure I was looking at an "ultra" 5K today.  If RunMeter was right, I would be running nearly 4 miles.  Crap.  With my speedy first mile, I was hoping to be in a position to PR.

I started down the hill and I was definitely not in my happy place anymore.  Oh well, it was a nice day and I was going to enjoy the decline after the long climb.  Shortly after I started running again, I saw the 2 mile sign.  That meant that the course was measured accurately.  The halfway point must have been the water stop (that’s probably why I didn’t hear the 1.5 mile announcement – I had removed my headphones briefly at that point) and – although this was an out and back course – the second leg must take a different route.  Sure enough, when we got back down to the bottom of the hill, instead of going straight we veered left.  I would have noticed on the way up the hill if I had not been paying so much attention to the water stop and hill.

I had settled into a comfortable pace at this point.  I did a little mental math and calculated that I was near the 2.5 mile mark.  I was determined to run the rest of the route since I could have easily skipped the last walk stop.  I was now in a group of about eight runners and decided to keep pace with them.

The last leg had plenty of small rises and falls.  Much of it was spent on a paved trail.  After what must have been around the 2.75 mile point, the route became mostly uphill.  I was actually moved ahead of the group I was pacing with and was on my own between them and another small group ahead of me.  The last bit was a pretty steep uphill climb.  I turned the corner, saw the 3 mile sign as well as the crowd near the finish line and started sprinting.  Even running uphill, I blasted past the entire group of runners that were ahead of me before crossing the timing mats [Is this a dick move?].  I caught a glimpse of the clock and it read 28 something.  Holy crap.  I had set a PR. I went to hit stop on RunMeter…but it was already stopped.  Crap.  I must have hit the stop button when bringing the app to focus on my iPhone preparing for the final sprint. Nuts.  Oh well, I would just have to wait for the official timing to see what my official time was.

I grabbed a sport drink and a banana before locating my son.  The race was well stocked with after-race goodies.  There were apples, oranges, bananas along with water and zero calorie sport drinks.  There was also an assortment of breakfast bars.

We waited until the last 5K runners finished before the kids 1/2 mile run began.  The boys ran first.  My son did much better than he had anticipated.  Just like his old man, he finished in the middle of the pack, but was happy with the results.  He even received a sweet medal for his efforts.

We headed back home.  I knew that the rest of my day was shot as I was on call and Hurricane Irene was taking out a number of our east coast networks.

So what was my official time?  There was no official time!  Not for me.  For whatever reason, my results did not show up.  According to the results…I didn’t run at all. 

I was able to identify the last guy I passed and I finished just in front of him (I passed him about 5 feet from the mats).  He finished with a 28:35, so my time was most likely 28:34.  This is a PR by just over 30 seconds.    Not bad for a relatively hilly course on a run which I had no expectations other than to finish.  Too bad there’s no official record of it.  Not a blazing time by anyone’s standards, but it’s 4.5 minutes faster than my first 5K…which was only two months ago.  At this pace, I’ll be running sub-20 minute 5Ks by January. 

My legs were a bit dead yesterday after my 5 mile run on Thursday night.  When I woke up on Saturday, they seemed fine.  This would be my third Saturday in a row running a 5K.  Today’s run was in a small town only about 10 minutes away and the run started at 10 am, so I got to sleep in later than the past few Saturdays.  I did not, however, escape the humidity curse.  The last couple of Saturdays the humidity level had been over 87%.  Being a sweaty beast, I had hoped for a respite, but it stormed last night and well into this morning.  The humidity level was at 97% when I woke up and was at 86% at race time.  Other than the humidity, the weather was outstanding.  64 degrees with a slight breeze and the sun was buried behind the clouds.

I had run around this lake a number of times, so I was familiar with the course…except that the 5K was going to be run in reverse of the route I usually take.  Still, I knew that there were a couple of long inclines on the first half of the run.  The course we took was slightly different than the one I run and it (thankfully) meant missing one of the big hills.

I had preregistered for this run.  Check in was quick and painless.  I always get a bit worried with the old skool mailing of paper registration and check as opposed to registering through a website.  I like having instant verification that I can reference at any point.  The post office did not fail me and I was preregistered.

Around 9:50 I wandered to the starting area.  This was going to be a pretty small field.  I estimated that there were probably only 50 or so runners.  This is a blessing and a curse.  A blessing in that I would not be dodging runners at the start of the race, but a curse in that I would not be able to hide my crappy running.

Even though I positioned myself at the back of the pack, this was the first race where I could actually see the starting line at the beginning of the race.  At 10 am a pathetic sounding horn signaled the start of the race.

I started out at a good pace.  I was going to really try to finish this race under 30 minutes.  I was going to allow myself short walk breaks (a holdover strategy from my Galloway Marathon training).  My strategy was to try to get through the first half of the race with a 9:30 minute per mile average.  Since the first half was pretty much uphill, I figured that even if I could pull that pace off, I would have a decent shot at finishing under 30 minutes even with breaks as the last half would be somewhat downhill and I was familiar with the course.

It still takes me about half of a mile before I get into “running mode”.  My body fights me a bit at the start and my breathing is a bit fitful.  I worked on keeping my arms low and my strides and arm pumping short.  Even though I find this a bit counter-intuitive, it helped me keep a nice pace on my last few runs.

About a quarter mile in, the small field pretty much broke into even smaller clumps of runners.  I found a guy about my age and followed him.  I had no idea what pace I was at, but I didn’t feel like I was pushing too hard.  Near the beginning of the course, there was one of those electronic signs that flash your miles per hour in order to slow down speeding drivers.  I laughed as it flashed the speed for the runners as we passed.  According to the sign I was setting a blazing 8 miles per hour pace at that point.

Runmeter announced my half mile pace in the 8 minute per hour range.  I was a bit surprised.  Though this isn’t a blistering pace for most runners, it’s a pretty quick pace for me – especially at the start of the race.  I wasn’t feeling like I was going too fast, so I settled in and followed the pace of the guy ahead of me.  At the 1 mile split a race volunteer announced that we were running an 8:42 pace.  Wow.  I was well ahead of my goal of 9:30/mile and this was on the uphill portion of the race.  As usual, Runmeter announced my 1 mile split quite a bit later and a bit slower (8:57/mile).  Still, I was well ahead of schedule.

The uphill portion continued until about the 1.2 mile mark.  There was a brief downhill stretch, followed by another brief uphill stretch.  I was near the crest of that hill that I took my first walk break.  I had conflicting emotions about this decision.  I know that I could have kept running and I’ve completed at 1.55 miles with no stops on every 5K I’ve run so far.  I was testing to see if using quick walk breaks would benefit me on a 5K as it had on my long (okay, “long” is relative here) run on Thursday.  At the start of my break, Runmeter was showing that I was still at a 9:15/mile pace.  I kept my first break to about 15 seconds and resumed running.  I couldn’t tell if the break had aided me or not.  I did lose the guy I was pacing at that point and a couple of runners passed me.  I would stop a total of six times on this run.  Most of my walk breaks were less than 15 seconds.  I really hated taking them and I’m sure that I pissed off the couple of runners that would pass me during my breaks, only to have me pass them again later.  One thing that kept me hopeful was that there was a woman about 400 yards ahead of me who was taking breaks as well.  She seemed to be maintaining her position through the entire race.

Mile 2 is where I generally lose my mojo.  The last couple of 5K runs, this is where I’ve stopped.  For whatever reason, between the 2 mile mark and the 2.75 mile mark, I run out of juice.  I was about this point that the course changed from paved streets to a dirt street.  Eventually, it would change again into a gravel path for the last .75 miles.  Runmeter announced the bad news at the 2.5 mile mark: my pace for the entire run was now at 9:48.  Granted, Runmeter paces seem to be about 10 seconds or so off of the “official” pace, but that still meant that I needed to make up 8 to 18 seconds per mile over the last .6 miles.  My walk break strategy seemed to have failed and I was doomed to coming in after the half hour mark yet again.

Oh well, I was feeling pretty good so I picked up the pace.  I had been pacing a woman since the halfway point who ran the entire race.  I would actually take my walk breaks when I caught up with her, so I never actually passed her.  After my last walk break, I started off a bit quicker, but not at a full gallop as I knew that I didn’t have it in me to push it too much over a half mile.  I caught up to my pacer and passed her.  I picked up the pace a bit and caught up to the next runner.  As I passed her, a race volunteer announced “300 more yards.  Less than a minute left.”  I had no idea how far 300 yards was in miles (turns out to be about .17 miles) but I decided that I could sprint 3 football fields in order to finish this damn run.  I took off and even kicked it up one more gear once I could actually see the finish line.  I finished only about 5 feet behind the woman who had also been taking walk breaks who had also maintained a healthy lead over me throughout the entire race.

I hit stop on Runmeter and gasped for breath after slowing down in the chute.  I ripped off my race tag and handed it to the race volunteer at the end of the chute.  There was no digital clock (and the race was not chip timed) at the finish line.  I looked at my iPhone with dread because I was sure that I had missed the 30 minute mark again.  To my shock, not only had I broken the 30 minute mark for the first time, I was within 6 seconds of breaking 29 minutes.  My final (unofficial) time was 29:06.  While this is a time that most runners would spit on, it represented a new PR for this slow bastard.

Needless to say, I was very happy with my time.  I still need to work on my stamina.  I’m hoping that increasing my long, easy runs will eventually make 3.1 miles seem like a short stroll, but for now the 2 mile monster is still kicking my ass.  This may well simply be a mental barrier.  I’ve been trying to determine which part of my body is making me want to stop and I can’t narrow it down.  My breathing is not labored, my legs don’t hurt, and I’m not exhausted physically.  The humidity might be a factor, but at this point I’m chalking it up to a lack of will on my part.

For the second Saturday in a row I go up early and drove north to the Saint Cloud area.  Just like last week, the temps were cool for this time of year, but it was threatening to rain.  I swear that I received the same trivial dusting of pathetic rain drops during the same stretch of my drive.

I got to the location of the race, parked, checked in, took my shirt back to my car, and still had about 40 minutes to kill.  The 5K took place entirely within a park.  I walked around a bit and checked out some of the course.  A number of runners were jogging around the park to warm up.  There seemed to be a larger percentage of “serious” runners warming up for this race.  I’m still not up to running before I, well, run.  After walking around a bit, I messed with my playlist and read my email.

Soon enough, we were lined up for the start.  I positioned myself in the next to last row of runners.  The race director mentioned that there would be a couple of loops through the park and which way to turn based on the color of the marker.  I didn’t pay much attention because it was incredibly unlikely that I would end up leading the race and having to navigate the course on my own.    The race began with a canon being fired (pretty loud and cool).  We were off.

I thought that I had started off at a pretty decent pace.  I passed quite a few runners before we made the first turn into the trails.  It started to sprinkle just a bit once we hit the trail.  I was hoping that it would continue as I welcomed the cooling rain, but after only a minute or so the rain stopped.  So no rain, but the humidity was now even higher than the pre-race 87%.  Joy.

Each mile, there was a volunteer with a stop watch shouting out split times to the runners.  At the 1 mile mark, I was told 9:40 something.  RunMeter (as it’s prone to do) clocked me at a slower 10:13.

I was still feeling good at this point.  The terrain was definitely varied on this run.  We started out on a paved street, then hit the trails.  The trails were paved, but not flat.  They looked like someone squeezed out a very large toothpaste tube containing blacktop and large rocks.  It was slightly uncomfortable to run on, and the sides were definitely sloped down a bit.  This was the first race (and only the third time altogether) that I wore my Nano Zigs.  A number of times the course changed to grass as we ran across fields.  There was even a bridge crossing over a small creek.  I should have been enjoying the scenery, but for whatever reason I was not liking this run.  I could blame any number of things: the humidity, my shoes, the course, but it just came down to me just not having “it” today.

I felt that I was running okay at this point though.  I had passed a number of runners near the start of the race and I had only been passed by one runner since then.  There was a decent distance between me and the next group of runners behind me.  I was pacing behind a woman since just before the first mile marker.  This is something that I get a little self-conscience about.  I don’t want to be the creepy, sweaty, heavy-breathing dude following some random woman during the race.

Around the 2 mile mark, I started thinking about walking.  This is the same point that I broke down and walked on my last race.  I regretted it last time, but this time I was mentally not into running the whole race.  Pissed off at myself, I took my first walk break at the 1.94 mile mark.  RunMeter had me at a torrid 10:49 pace up to that point.    It was pretty unlikely that I was going to break the 30 minute barrier on this run even without the pathetic walk break.

I walked for about 20 seconds and then started up again.  This was enough time to allow my “pacer” to get well ahead of me and for the group of runners behind me to catch up and pass me.  If my last race was any indication, then this would be my only walk break.  Unfortunately, the hill at the 2 mile mark had other ideas.

I actually laughed out loud and muttered “fuck me” when I saw the hill.  I should mention here that the course consisted of two loops.  After the first loop brought us back to the starting point, we headed down the trail again, but shortly afterwards were directed to the left.  Goodbye open fields and cute little bridge.  Hello big fucking hill.  At this point I was pretty sure that the Marquis de Sade had plotted this course.  Since I had just taken a breather, I began powering up the hill.  I made it 95% of the way, then took my second walk break.  I don’t know what mental barrier makes me  stop near the top of big hills, but I gave in and took a quick break before resuming running down the other side of the hill.

To be fair, that hill ate a few runners.  I actually passed a couple of people on the hill.  For whatever reason, after about a minute after the hill, I stopped again.  I was disgusted with myself at this point.  When I resumed running, I was in an interesting position: completely alone.  The path (now gravel) was winding enough that I could not see anyone in front or – or behind – me.  I “treated” myself to one more brief walk break (for a total of four stops) before scraping some measure of self-dignity and running the remaining .3 miles.

I finished just over 32 minutes.  I was wiped out and disgusted with my “performance”.  I had managed to turn in my second worst time ever [okay, being as this was only my 5th 5K ever, and I had only been running 5Ks for a just over a month – I may have been a bit harsh on myself]. I think what really got to me was that I like running trails and should have enjoyed this run.  I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will never be a fast runner, but I really figured that a gym monkey like myself should be able to handle a few hills and terrain changes.

Oh well, I have to keep in mind that just a few months ago I would have never believed that I could run 3.1 miles with *only* four stops.  What seemed like a huge disappointment today, would actually have been a great run at the beginning of the summer.

This race is put on by a local running group (the Saint Cloud River Runners) and was very well organized.  There were plenty of volunteers manning the course and a decent turnout (about 120 runners).  The race was CHEAP.  It only cost $10 ($15 the week of the race) and included a t-shirt.  No chip timing or goodie bags, but the t-shirt is my favorite race shirt so far, even though I generally don’t like cotton shirts.  I would definitely recommend this race…as long as you keep that stupid hill at the 2 mile mark in mind..

Tomorrow I will run yet another race.  This time it will be a 4K on the paved streets of Minneapolis with my family.

What the hell did I get myself into?  Today was my first race ever.  The last time I ran in a race, I was in sixth grade.  I agreed to sign up for a 4K with my wife later this summer and I’ve been running (if you can call it that) since mid-April so I don’t embarrass myself during that race.

I wish I remember the impetus for signing up for this race, but I honestly don’t.  I chose this race because it’s nearby and I have the day off (4th of July) off from work.  The race director emailed us a few days before the race and advised that about 400 runners had pre-registered.  I was happy that the field would be this large as that gave me better odds that I would not be the absolute last person to cross the finish line.  I had only two goals for this race: finish and don’t be the last person to do so.

I partook in my first packet pickup the day before the race.  I gave my name and was handed a bag containing the race t-shirt, my bib, and a bunch of coupons and promotional items.  The night before I Googled for running etiquette and noted that I should not start near the front of the pack as I’m not fast.  I also noted that I should stay to the right and let the faster runners pass me.

The race started at 10 am.  I got to the starting area around 8:30 am.  Since I already had picked up my packet, I really didn’t have much to do but kill time for an hour and a half.  The route was a point to point route, so my wife dropped me off at the start and then parked near the finish so she could get a picture of me (hopefully) finishing and we could avoid walking 3.1 miles back to the start after the race.

It was a very sunny day.  The temperature was in the mid-seventies as race time approached.  I sat in the shade on a hillside and watched the crowd of runners grow as the clock inched towards 10 am.  I scanned the crowd to see if there were any runners I felt I could beat.  Early on, the number of runners I felt I might be able to beat was zero.  I saw people stretching, sprinting, hopping, and going for long runs prior to the start of the race.  I had no pre-race warm up planned and I certainly wasn’t going to do any running prior to the race as I wanted to use all of my energy to propel myself to the finish line.

I had scoped out the route a week ago.  I had walked the route and noted that there were three hills.  The first was a baby hill, followed by a normal hill, and then – near the 2.5 mile mark – there was a steep hill.  Otherwise the route wound through neighborhoods before spilling into the main street in Delano and ending on a path behind the local baseball park.  Other than that last hill, there were no major obstacles.

About 15 minutes before the start I wandered down near the starting area.  There was a DJ pumping out pop tunes and occasionally a person would jump on the PA and make an announcement.  I couldn’t make out what she was saying.  I found a group of middle-aged women in the last fifth of the pack and just before the line of parents with strollers and decided that was where I would start the run.  I made sure my iPhone playlist was loaded up and that Runmeter had started.  10 am came and passed.  Many of the runners looked at their watches.  Soon the race director made an announcement…which I could not understand.  Eventually – like a game of “telephone” in grade school – the announcement filtered from runner to runner: the start would be delayed as the police needed to clear the running route.

Did I mention that the running route would be the same route as the Delano 4th of July parade? This I knew before the race.  What I didn’t know was how freaking popular the Delano 4th of July parade was.  With the exception of the first half mile, every inch of the race route would be packed with spectators.  If I had known this, I definitely would not have made this my first race.  If I was going to fail, I’d rather not fail in front of thousands of people.

Finally – about 15 minutes late – the race began.  I don’t even remember hearing a horn or a gun, but just noticed that the mass of runners had started to move…very slowly.  It took a while before I even crossed the starting line, but with the sound of Haujobb’s Dead Market throbbing in my ears, I was off and running my first race ever.

Although I did experience an adrenaline rush, it was a controlled high as I had to keep an eye out for other runners as well as adapt to the slow pace.  The slower pace was a godsend though as I was able to run comfortably and further than I usually do on my solo runs.  I soon settled into a pocket of runners and matched their pace.

We made a number of turns during the first half mile.  I tried drinking in the whole experience while watching out for obstacles (mostly other runners).  After the first half mile, we would run the vast majority of the remaining distance on city streets which meant there was plenty of space to pass (or be passed in my case).

Before the race began I noticed three men dressed in wedding gowns. They were running the race in those dresses as a promotion for a local dress shop.  Right before the 1 mile mark I passed them.  I now had three goals: finish, don’t be last, and beat the men in dresses.

I mentioned passing the 1 mile mark.  That’s the furthest I’ve run without taking a walk break.  Prior to today, I had only achieved an underwhelming .88 miles before taking a walk break.  The combination of the slower pace, the rush of adrenaline, and the drive to not end this race in colossal failure was pushing me to run better and further.

As I stated earlier, about half a mile in the streets were lined with parade spectators.  They were cheering for the most part and there were a ton of kids high-fiving the runners.  I high-fived a few kids and – right before the halfway mark – I ended up high-fiving Goldie the Gopher (well, someone dressed up as the University of Minnesota mascot).

At the halfway point there was a water stop.  I ran past it but ended up taking my first walking break shortly afterwards.  I had run 1.5+ miles without stopping.  That almost doubled my previous best.  I know that this sounds pretty lame to most people, but I’ve only ever run more than a mile without stopping one time: back in boot camp during the “freedom run” that you had to complete or else do an additional 8 weeks of boot camp.

I wish I could say that this was my only walk break of the run, but I ended up taking a lot of them.  The further into the race I was, the more frequent the walk breaks became.  I was happy to find out that I wasn’t the only one taking walk breaks and I found out pretty early on that I was not going to be the last runner to finish…provided I made it to the finish line.

As the race went on, the crowd grew larger.  We made a right onto the main street in Delano about 1.8 miles into the race.  This was the main parade viewing route and there were thousands of spectators packing both sides of the street.  Crap.  Had I bothered to research the parade I would have found out it was “Minnesota’s oldest and largest 4th of July Parade”…and I would have skipped this race.  At this point of the run I was in run/walk mode with the runs becoming shorter and the walk breaks occurring more often.  I wasn’t the only one doing this and I ended up leapfrogging with a woman for most of mile 2: I would walk and she would pass me, then I would run only to pass her while she walked.

I got about halfway through the main parade route when I received a text message: “Run faster!  I’m right behind you!”  Crap.  I thought that there was little chance that anyone I knew would be at the parade, but one of my co-workers was there and recognized me.  I asked him later if I was walking when he saw me and he told me that I was running but I looked mean as hell.  That “mean” look was most likely me being pissed off at myself for walking so often.

The crowds finally thinned as we approached the 2.5 mile mark.  The course turned to the right and we began the ascent of the big hill.  I continued to sprinkle in liberal walk breaks.  I knew that the remainder of the run was downhill and then a brief flat run over paved paths.  I convinced myself I was conserving energy and I would run the rest of the race from the top of the hill with no stops.  That didn’t happen as I took another quick walk break.

Finally I spotted the finish line.  I surprised myself by sprinting the last 100 yards and passing runner on the way.  I crossed the finish line and had completed my first race.  I ended up finishing in just under 33 minutes, which is slow, but still faster than any of my 5K training runs by a full minute.  Plus, I had run for 1.5 miles without a single stop and I had beaten the three dudes in dresses.

I looked around for my wife, but did not see her.  I grabbed a banana and a bottle of water and returned the timing chip.  Finally I texted my wife and she found me.  She had had trouble finding the finish area so I didn’t end up with an action shot of my sweaty self powering across the finish line.

After all was said and done, I had a blast.  I finished and I was far from the last runner to do so.  It went so well that I started searching for local 5K races as soon as I got home.  All in all, a great experience and a fun way to celebrate the 4th of July.