Saturday, January 9, 2010

Resolution 5K (XC)

I got chicked about two thirds of the way through. Joe Dudman and his toes were way out front. There was one other guy ahead of me but he was fading fast and I knew I'd get him. Second place, I thought; what a weak field (no disrespect intended). Still, hey, second place. Then I got chicked by a woman in black tights, which could describe just about every female runner out there on a chilly January morning, but this was the young one who could really motor. I got third place on the soggy, occasionally muddy, sometimes uneven turf out at Clackamas Community College. My splits were 6:20, 6:40 and 6:30, and then 33 seconds for that last, dangling 5K tenth, for a 20:03. As always, I was left afterward to ask: Did it hurt as much as it should have? I never know but am always skeptical. The problem, I think, is that the memory of running pain doesn't last. Not with me. It's immediately displaced. I'm staggering toward the finish line my mind a blazing blur as signals of ache, tightness and distress assault it from every corner. The world is about to end. Fine, let it! I finish. Two seconds later I'm saying to the tag-grabber something utterly rational like: "Damn, I wish I'd gotten that 20:00." But, of course, this is as it must be. This is why I train, what I condition my body and mind to do. To move, move, move past the moment—which hurts—and take the next step. There are a billion miracles of biokinetics happening instantaneously. The machine is under enormous stress. It knows one thing for certain: Stop, and everything stabilizes. Stop, and the chances of survival are enhanced. And my training tells me to move, move, move past it.

Official results
Garmin data

Sunday, January 3, 2010

The Racing Year Begins

Well, that was a heck of a 5K I ran this morning. Unfortunately, the race was a 10K (rimshot, please).

It was the Oregon Road Runners Club's season opener, with options: a 20.10K to salute the new year, or a 10K. Nine times out of 10 I'd choose the longer distance, but those two hard marathons late last year—in late-September and early-December—left my legs pretty wiped out. In the four weeks since CIM I'd run just five times, including this past Monday (6 miles, slow), Wednesday (8 miles @ 7:30) and Friday (8.5, slow). I felt better each run—and on the days after, too, thanks to lots of massage each night on my calves and Achilles tendons. When I got up this morning I was excited and eager to race again.

The race was out in Forest Grove, about 20 miles west of downtown Portland. This being Oregon, you couldn't have asked for a more perfect January morning for a race: gray skies, temps in the low 40s and the air still, dead calm, not a whisper of a breeze.

At the starting line I said hi to Red Lizard compatriot Joe Dudman along with Steven Livermore, whose excellent blog I've been reading for several years. Great to meet Steven finally! Joe was running the 10K but is fast so I knew I wouldn't see much of him during the race; Steven is fast, too, but was running the 20, so I didn't figure to see him on the course, either.

With a "runners set … go!" we were off. I went out fast. I had a feeling it was too fast, but wasn't exactly sure. The fact that Joe and the leaders weren't pulling away too much too quickly should have tipped me off. I checked my Garmin a half mile in and though I can't remember what the numbers were, I recall thinking I was headed for an opening mile around 6:10—fast but not stupid-fast. But that was wrong. I hit the first mile at 5:54. My thought when I saw that: Oh, bleep.

The course went through the small town of Forest Grove for a mile or two, then out into the countryside, staying flat. I passed the halfway mark in 19:09, 10 seconds better than my 5K PR. I was already hurting a bit, then around 3.5 miles we got a climb of about 50 feet in elevation over a few tenths of a mile. Ugh. I recovered on the downside of the hill, but then at 4.25 we had another one, this one a little longer and steeper. We got to go down after cresting the hill, but cruelly the course turned around at the bottom. So up the backside of the hill we went.

Most of the way here I was chasing a guy in a yellow shirt and shoes that had day-glo green on their soles. I saw a lot of those soles, but they began to pull away as we headed down a long, steady, slight decline that comprised most of the sixth mile. This was where that stupid-fast first mile really came back to haunt me. With my marathon fitness, I should have been able to cruise this stretch, but the lactic acid buildup put a literal crimp in that plan. Then came one more hill, the biggest one yet, a good 100+ foot rise in the quarter mile leading up to the Mile 6 marker. I just tried to relax, lean forward and keep my feet moving. Took me about two minutes to cover that climb, a dreadful pace around 8:00/mile.

Finally, back to the school where we'd started. I crossed the line in 40:23 by my accounting, and gave congratulations to the dude who finished in front of me after powering past me up that last hill.

So my 5K/5K splits were 19:09 and 21:14. Disastrous at first blush, but perhaps not quite so bad given that the first half of the course was flat (actually, on the Garmin, a net decline), while the second half featured those four climbs. Tough stuff but a good and fair test. Nice course, nice race, and the blueberry pancakes served up by the Hagg Lake Harriers afterward were an outstanding bonus. All in all, a really fun morning. I'm looking forward to the rest of the ORRC 10K Series. There are eight race in all and I should be able to do each one except Hagg Lake, which unfortunately is the day before the Eugene Marathon.

  • OFFICAL RESULTS: 40:23, 3/10 M45-49, 14/98 men, 15/211 overall.
  • My mile splits, adjusted slightly from the Garmin data to reflect the course markers: 5:54, 6:11, 6:23, 6:42, 6:56, 6:45 and 1:32 for the final 0.2.