Crystal, Joe, and I were all happy with our race results.

http://mdtiming.com/2015/AS-Mile-2015results.txt

18 July 2015

John Wall Mile

Southern High School

My race went very well. I had run a 5:59 that Tuesday and it's uncommon to improve by much, but I ran the 5:59 after a work day. Normally I get to the track series early, but I got to that one late. I did an abbreviated warm up, which isn't altogether bad, except that I didn't like being rushed to warm up after sitting in a chair for 9+ hours. The previous week I felt I lagged a bit at times in my middle laps, so I was more aggressive during the middle part of the race that last time.

I ran very well the couple of days leading into the John Wall Mile. I did 8 super easy miles Wednesday, 8 super easy miles Thursday, and then just 3 miles on Friday. The easy miles helped get any deadness out of my legs I may have had from racing on Tuesday. The volume of running helped me keep my weight down. Friday gave me a day to recover a little bit and do just a few strides to make sure my legs had some turnover.

I showed up to Southern High School on Saturday quite early. I got there at like 6:15 when race start time was 8:00 with my heat probably not being until much later. I misjudged how long it would take to get to the high school. I was rested in terms of my legs and cardio system, but I'd only gotten 5 hours of sleep. Judging my arrival time better could have given me another hour of sleep.

I had plenty of time to relax and warm up. I ran just over 20 minutes and did a handful of strides. I was able to keep sipping water or Gatorade as needed. I ate a banana and some popcorn on the car ride up and would occasionally have some popcorn throughout the morning. I had some Gu I considered taking and wasn't going to take it, but after my warm up I was thoroughly sweating and a little jittery, so I thought I should just to make sure I'd had enough calories so for that morning.

Other than a "false start" (they messed up the timing and had to call us back to the line 100m into the race) the race was fairly straightforward. Everyone in my heat had a decent idea of their fitness and ran fairly evenly. I went out slightly fast in the race just so I could get a spot in the first lane, because I was about to go into the opening turn on the outside. (They started us closer to the 100m start line and not a traditional 1500m or 1600m start line.) Everyone starts fast, though, so after a lap the guys in front of me seemed to have slowed, so I moved ahead of them. I tucked back in behind another guy moving well. I stayed with him for most of the rest of the race. In the final lap a guy passed us on the back straight and they both started to pull away from me. Coming off the final turn into a very short straightaway for a sprint I think I passed the guy I had been tailing, but the one guy got away from me.

I loved having people in the race if for no other reason that being able to tuck in and not feel like a jerk. They were running close enough to the same pace that I could be in a line with them and not feel like I was pushing too hard or holding too much back. I ran a fairly well paced race as far as I can tell.

My time ended up being something like 5:49. That's a 10 second improvement. Unusual in the same week of another mile, especially when not much really went wrong in the previous one. I attribute my success primarily to the two really good days of easy aerobic running I had Wednesday and Thursday and then having an ideal warm up before the race. Unfortunately, it's also why I don't expect I'll do as well Tuesday. I won't have had casual days of running between races, weight may go up, and I'll probably be a hot mess during the warm up.

Yesterday I attempted to make the track series 5000m race. I left work at 5:30pm, which gave me a tight 1 hour window to get there by 6:30pm to register. Bridge traffic can be unpredictable. I hoped that crossing the bridge around 6pm or after meant the traffic might have subsided a little bit. Instead it was basically the worst traffic I've ever seen. I inched along Route 235 until I finally got to turn toward the bridge. Speed picked up there for a moment and before long I found myself about 200m from the base of the bridge. Traffic stopped. I waited a while. I didn't think much of it. Then I took closer notice to the fact that no cars were coming from the other direction. I stared into the distance to confirm no cars were coming, nor were cars moving ahead. Traffic both ways was at a complete standstill. After a few more minutes of this and seeing the time on the clock already being around 6:30pm I turned around and drove to where I knew DR was going to be running.

I caught him just in time. He was slated to run 6 easy miles. I planned to race 3.1 miles. I ended up doing a 4.5 mile harder-than-tempo-but-not-quite-a-race in his wake. I figure this approximated the workout I would have gotten had I made it to the track series. I was very sad to miss the event on its final day of the season, but consoled myself with an equivalent workout. While DR and I were running sirens could be heard blaring nearby for some other issue. Surely not a great day to be on the road if you were trying to cross the bridge. When I left around 7:30pm cars were still at a standstill all the way to the church just before the intersection of 4/235.

... especially when considering that Tuesday evening's weather turned out to be the best so far this week...

It was brutal when we were warming up before 6pm--bright sun and probably 90s. Then it dropped all evening. I think it was still pretty hot and tough during the race, but it was nice by the 200 and 100.

We missed both you guys.

29 August 2015

Chaptico Classic

This was a goal race for me, but my training cycle was not ideal. I’ve had hip trouble for much of the summer. I was improving greatly all year, but was limited from May-June. I had a flash of brilliance in July where I trained and recovered very well while Christina was on vacation with the kids before I could join them. I then rolled an ankle and got a blister on my own vacation, which limited me some in addition to just not having much time while taking care of the kids the whole week. I then found myself running surprisingly slow during all of August. Part of it was purposeful, as my focus was on consistent running and increasing volume. By the end of the month I’d gotten frustrated that I seemed in worse shape. I knew I wasn’t capable of running my peak mile time from the summer. I was skeptical that I could equal my best 5k time from the summer. I was uncertain I could even run as fast in something like an 8k as I had at the start of spring off almost no consistent training. In the last two weeks before the Chaptico Classic I renewed my focus on speed and did two good sets of intervals and strides on a majority of other easy days. I put in one okay long run. I had nothing in the way of a tempo and you could claim I did one steady state if you’ll let me call something at 8:30 pace on grass a steady state effort for me right now.

I woke up on race day fairly happy with my training. I knew I was at least conditioned more appropriately than I had been a few weeks ago. Michael went to bed coughing and with a runny nose. It’s worth noting that Christina had a slumber party with the kids in the living room just to ensure I would be able to sleep better. That certainly helped me fall asleep and feel less like I was just breathing Michael’s coughs. (While I could claim that being a family man sets back my training, I can also say that Lacey and Michael sometimes tell me to run and that Christina accommodates it admirably.) Then Michael was up coughing much of the early morning starting at 4am. It was really hard to tell whether this was a cold, allergies, nasal drip, or who knows. I was up from 4am just lying in bed listening to him cough. I had planned to get up around 5:45am, but finally at 5:15am I just got up and started getting ready. I resolved that I would more easily sleep in the parking lot at Chaptico than at home in my bed. I was the first car to park in the Chaptico grass field; maybe a handful of volunteers were up at the church already just getting started. I got something like 30 minutes of sleep in my car while in the grass lot.

DR and Alden arrived in short order. Perry magically appeared likely having got there while I was asleep. Rick, Val, and Liam were a little bit later. Alden and I did a 20ish minute warm up together. We did this at his 10k race pace, but he didn’t seem to mind. It was a really easy run or jog for me, but that was precisely what I wanted. I wanted to move my body in the running motion, but I didn’t want to fatigue anything before the race. We saw Rick, Val, and Liam as we were finishing our cooldown. I saw Tom Sterling of SMR Knights fame and slapped his hand as I ran by. I saw Coach Thompson and gave him a hello. I donned a super inexpensive race outfit I bought off Amazon.com to go with my newly started yellow and black Adidas Adizero Adios 2 shoes. I like the colors, but the cut and contrast of the shirt does not flatter my hairy white chest. I did a few strides and then went to the starting line.

While registering I saw Noah Wood, so I knew he would likely knock me down one peg in the age group. I then recognized a Hispanic guy who beat me at the Race to the Creek 5k. I couldn’t remember his age. DR told me Shane Martz was running it and sure enough he was on the starting line. He had just had a baby 2 months ago and I wrongly thought this might slow him down. He looked ready to go on the starting line. Nobody else really looked like they might be in my age group. I recognized several of the others on the starting line. I saw others like Michael Bussell and Danny Bennett who typically beat me. I saw others like Robert Fritz, Travis Priest, and Tom Burke who I used to beat easily, but lately have not been close to competing against.

So it was no real surprise when the race started that many people moved ahead of me. There was no mad sprint, but I definitely found several people in front of me from the start. Michael Bussell seemed to be leading and the group amassed behind him. I had no intention of pushing the pace prior to the opening hill, so I found a rhythm and moved along. I was hoping to race at a pace of 7:00 +/- 20 seconds. I wanted to average a pace of sub-7. I believed I was teetering on the edge of being able to do so, but Chaptico’s hills presented an unknown factor. The downhills here are great, so I don’t know that there’s a huge pure time loss because of the uphills, but the hills late in the course are lactate busters, so times here are never ideal.

I tried to identify the number of people in front of me and it was a challenge. There were too many of them! I thought they’d string out enough on the hill for me to see each person clearly, but they stayed fairly clumped together. I had to abandon that hope. It did seem like Michael was still leading and Noah had maybe moved up near to him. Shane was running strongly in this group and I questioned whether he was going out a little fast even if he was in good shape. The Hispanic guy I recognized was running at the tail end of the group, which was different from how he had run at Race to the Creek. There he actually passed me midway through the race. I calmed myself by saying surely several of them would come back to me after going out too aggressively on this hill and underestimating the length of a 10k. Only at the top of the hill did I begin to care about closing distance on people in front of me, which began first with the Hispanic guy and another gentleman running alongside him.

The top of the hill is roughly around .70 miles into the race. The lead group had really gapped me. I didn’t look behind me, but I didn’t hear footsteps. I felt like I was running in a vacuum. I increased the pace slightly, which was natural since I just maintained a fairly even effort from the hill. I thought that a few runners would come back to me. They didn’t really come back to me. I had to concede that maybe the people ahead of me doing a 10k knew their sport well enough to be fit and know their fitness, so I couldn’t really count on much of the field coming back to me. Without pushing down hard on the accelerator I maintained an aggressive attitude toward the runners very far ahead of me and continued the chase. At the 10k turn around I was still not close to them. The gap was maybe more than 200 meters, so that’s more than 45 seconds at this pace. That’s a huge distance to be behind people a mile or so into a race. I know from past years that I’ve done all right on the slight downhill back to the church, so I thought I could make up some ground there.

But first we had to merge with the 5k runners turning around. To my complete surprise I approached the 5k turnaround just as DR was making the u-turn along with some other young guy. DR pulled in front of me at maybe 15 meters ahead. He did not immediately gap me. I checked my watch and it indicated I was maybe running in the 6:30s. Being behind DR excited me some. When he didn’t run away from me I started to daydream chasing him. The longer he didn’t pull away the more this daydream became exciting. I knew he was halfway into his race, though, which is a fairly typical point to slow down. I was soon very glad I did not surge to run with DR, because a half mile later he suddenly began to pull away in a hurry. By then he would have had just a mile to go, all the uphills well behind him, and be squarely focused on cruising downhill to the finish against his competitors. He gapped me immensely over the 1 mile stretch to the finish.

Running by the 5k finish was exciting. It would have been fun to kick with all these guys going by. First a group of 5 high school kids came charging by me at the turn toward the church. They were in a close race and I was excited just watching them storm by me. Then Perry and another guy came by and they sprinted off to the left to finish while I continued straight. The 5k was supposed to start 5 or 10 minutes after the 10k, but my watch said something like 4:41 when I heard the cannon boom for them. I was able to estimate the finishing times of DR and Perry based on seeing them and knowing when they started.

So this puts a 10k runner at about 3.5 miles into the race and I had still passed nobody or been passed by nobody. Running by the finish area was a pleasant distraction, but also one that made me lose sight of anyone ahead of me. I ran to the bottom of the hill, turned left, and headed toward the two hills. While these hills certainly annoy me and I feel like I run slow as molasses on them, I don’t actually mind their inclusion in the course. It maybe hurts my finishing time, but I see them as the sort of things about the course that make it relevant that I’ve run the course before. These were the kinds of features that were supposed to bring runners back to me. And they did!

I passed the 4 mile mark just before the hills began. I then passed the Hispanic runner on the first hill! I passed the guy who had been running with him on the second hill! When I turned right toward the water, I saw a younger guy up ahead and soon passed him. I like this kid. Immediately after I passed he asked me if I minded him running on my heel and I told him I didn’t. Michael Bussell was the next one ahead of us and had clearly faded. At this point in the race we had maybe 1.5 miles left to go and getting passed is the kind of thing that might wake a speedier kid up from his slogging slumber, so I didn’t know whether he would respond to the pass. I passed him in the gravel downhills as we weaved through charity walkers. At this point I was fairly sure I was pulling the one kid behind me still and I wasn’t sure if Bussell had jumped on board, too.

We turned right on the street and I imagined one or two of them behind me in a line. Up ahead I was surprised to see Tom Burke. He had a sizable gap on me, but I knew I had to pull away from these kids. Even if I’m running off only 30 miles per week I consider myself an endurance runner and even if I have a decent 50m sprint I fully assume these kids could destroy me if it came down to something like a 200, 400, or 800. I pushed the pace and eyed Tom Burke. It was hot. This was the only moment in the race where I truly felt hot. We were running on pavement in the sun. While I did not like this, I knew I was pushing the pace and much like the hills I saw the heat from the sun during this stretch as another thing that would make me stronger than my competition at this stage of the race. I caught Tom Burke as we were turning right onto the side road. This is a small 100m stretch before turning left toward the finish. It’s the last real part where you can feel alone as just the runners. It’s the kind of place where you can be passed without the crowds seeing you and so I really felt like Tom would probably not respond to it. He said something encouraging to me as I passed that also demonstrated zero eagerness to pursue me. When I turned left toward the finish I was only concerned about that kid (no clue where he was at this point) behind me possibly mounting a charge, so I pushed the pace just shy of a sprint. I was very glad to cross the finish line having run away from any need to sprint against anyone at the finish (though there was a point 1 mile from the finish where I dreaded the idea that I might push so hard to catch Tom Burke only to then have to battle him in a sprint right at the finish).

The results show that from the 4 mile mark (start of the hills) until the finish I went from 13^th place to 9^th place. You can see that behind Jose the Hispanic there is a solid 1:16 second gap until the next finisher. That’s where I was running at the start of the race – nobody behind me and everyone else in front of me 45+ seconds ahead. I had to create my own competition in my head for 4 miles until I could finally challenge other runners. My finishing time of 42:11 represents a 6:48 pace, which was on the good side of my time goal, but more important a product of an intelligently run race. That’s what excites me most of all. I lost to many people I’ve beaten before, but gunning down a few like Jose, Michael, and Tom later in the race made me feel like I’m at least improving throughout the year and showing up on race day. Shane is ahead of me, but not far off. I liked seeing Noah so far ahead. He’s run very well this year and if I’m going to need to catch him to compete in my age group, then much like DR it may as well at least be worthy competition. This is more excited than I normally get for 3^rd place in the age group. I know I could have done better with my training and lifestyle, but I did enough right in the last couple of weeks to address my weaknesses and I made it a competitive race.

I was curious whether the Chaptico Classic 10k from this past year might have been one of the deepest fields in recent years. I was a bit mystified by the relatively slow winning time, but fairly impressed to see through 13th place averaging sub-7 mile pace. I considered the weather fairly ideal for this time of year. I really can't recall a Chaptico Classic offhand that ever had better weather. The 2015 field was deeper through 10th place than most recent years except for 2012 being a notable exception. This year's winner would have finished 5th in 2012... just 5 seconds ahead of me. What's sad to note from that year is how many people I beat who are now faster than I am.

One competitor worthy of note is Robert Fritz. This guy was never on my radar in the past, but he's finished a little ahead of me in recent races. I see him in the 2012 results running 48:54 as a 49 year old. Now at 52 years old he just ran a 41:43. That's quite an improvement for a masters runner.

What is this Lumpia event Joe and Perry participated in?

12 September 2015

Pet Day 5k

I had two weeks between Chaptico and Pet Day to show some sign of improvement. I had to run one solid workout a few days after Chaptico, a solid workout the weekend between the races, and a small workout midweek of the race. Instead I only really managed to rest for the Lumpia 5k to run it not really like a workout. Then I did a loop at SMRSP that wasn’t supposed to be very difficult, but for whatever reasons due to the terrain combined with almost falling twice my muscles were sore for a few days after it such that I couldn’t really run a workout this past week. So the two weeks between the races ended up being the full recovery period I needed of mostly easy running just to feel ready to race again.

At the start of the race I picked out Jose Guiterrez, the guy who beat me at Race to the Creek and I beat at Chaptico. I figured based on those two races that he was probably better at 5k than he was at 10k and that he’d be a challenger. On the starting line was some scrawny teen who looked ready to race and I wondered if he could be seriously fast. The race started and nobody sprinted out ahead. Without meaning to lead the race I ended up doing so. I had some big black police SUV in front of me that I could follow. I find following these vehicles to be slightly annoying, but whatever. I liked to think that even if its uneven pacing confused me or its exhaust ever got into my face that maybe it was breaking the wind slightly once in a while even though it was pretty far ahead.

I heard footsteps behind me the entire race. I assumed it was the scrawny kid or Guiterrez or both. The footsteps got much closer to me at the halfway mark when they took some tangents tighter than I. Guitterrez and another guy were the ones on my heels. Nearing the roundabout at the end of the island I wasn’t quite sure whether we were supposed to run through it or not but Guitterez pulled up on my left side with no seeming intention of veering right, so we all turned left and I took that turn way wider than they did. I wanted to try and make them feel some hurt in the third mile, though, so I quickly positioned myself unquestionably in the lead again and then increased effort slightly as we left the Tiki Bar area and were back on the return flats. I was out ahead again, but I could still hear the footsteps.

The course starts at Our Lady Star of the Sea and runs down the back road there before turning onto Langley, which then connections to the main road. You have to run back down the main road when finishing before turning right onto Langley and then right onto the back road for a long straightaway to the finish.

When I turned right off the main road the other guy charged by me and Guiterrez followed. Maybe this was 2.5 or just over miles into the race. I’m not sure. I couldn’t tell if this was a surge or if these guys planned to keep this up, so I kind of maintained pace while it happened. Then we turned onto the back road. I picked it up, but they had picked it up, so I wasn’t closing much ground. Guiterrez then pushed and went by the other guy. I worried both of these guys would beat me now and knew I couldn’t just kick by both of them with the gap developing between those two alone. It took a lot of effort to catch the other guy. Nearing the finish I sprinted ahead of him and thought maybe I’d catch Guiterrez, too, but knew I’d started my spring too late. I was shocked how quickly I vaulted ahead when I did my sprint and I closed serious ground.

Guiterrez finished with me mere steps behind him. It was closer than the finish DR and I had at the Thanksgiving prediction race a few years ago. In that race the final time indicated it was just a second difference, but the gap was obvious. At Pet Day the time shows a second difference but I was running this guy down instead of him safely winning. I’m annoyed at myself for not kicking sooner, but who is to say he wouldn’t have had an ounce of energy left still to spend had I caught him. What impressed me most is that I think he ran the whole race holding a water bottle. I remember around 1 mile I put water on my head. At 2 miles I wanted to sip water and do similar, but the table was to the right of the sidewalk and unmanned, so I would have had to jump the curb and grab from the table. While I wanted a sip, I figured it was more a placebo at that point than a real advantage. And I can’t fathom racing a 6-something pace 5k holding a water bottle like that guy appeared to have done. Maybe my eyes deceived me.

Jose ran a smart race. I give him credit for that. He likely knows he went out too hard at Chaptico and that of the two races I only beat him at the one where he went out too hard. So he just ran on me the whole race until he had to win. I can’t blame him for running a perfect tactical race. I’m not going to split hairs too much over whether I could have caught him if I had mounted the courage to sprint sooner, because I’d rather get back to running in the 18s than dwelling on what might have been.

My hamstrings hurt more than my Achilles after this race. I took Sunday off and plan to take it easy the next couple of days. I don’t have a scheduled race again until 11 October.

I notice in the Grand Prix standings there is a guy named Nick Cahill who does like every race and is in my age group. He’s whooping me right now due to quantity of races. Noah and Shane (is he a current member?) could beat me if they participated in enough races. DR obviously could. I just reminded myself that membership renewal starts soon. This Cahill guy is going to be difficult to beat because he has many scores of 1 at races where nobody faster in the age group showed up. I intend to run the 10 miler, but don’t know whether it will be a 100% effort. I hope Thanksgiving and Jingle Bell (if I can attend both) will be 100% efforts. Based on previous years I can usually improve between now and Thanksgiving, but between Thanksgiving and Jingle Bell there isn’t really enough time.