PLANET3RRY

The Fourth of July race for the Knoxville area is called the Fireball Moonlight Classic. When I first started running, it was just the “Fireball Classic” and was held on the 4th of July. Well, things changed and although the venue did not, the date and start time did. It was moved to a night race held on the 3rd of July and has been this way for some time now. Back in the good old days, they had a small bunch of fireworks before race start. However, when there was no wind, this created a plume of smoke that the runners had to run through and caused some problems. But since this was the first time that I had ran the Fireball in some time, the race start was moved to 9pm, which in Tennessee is about dusk during the summer months.

The Fireball 5k was a last minute (couple of days) decision. I wasn’t planning on running the race, but it would give me a chance to see how I was doing on my running. This way I would know how much I needed to work on in preparation for the fall season. However, I didn’t realize that I had something in me that was keeping me down, but not out. So I really was tricked into thinking I was going to have an awesome run, when I had a limiter on myself that would cause me to have another poor performance at a road race.

I was going into this race very excited. In fact, I was having major race jitters: I was nervous, my stomach was up and down. So I knew that I would have a good showing at this race. Based on some of my workout times, I was thinking that a 23:30 target would be about perfect and with some of the guess for Guess My Time, Win Crap contest, I knew that was achievable. But I kept over looking a cough with phlegm that I had.

During my pre-race warmup, I looked over the finish line. It hadn’t changed locations from years past, so I was happy. I knew what to expect at the end and how to tweak my strategy at the end. As I continued to warm-up, I got a Nature’s Do Not Call signal and I decided it best I go over and wait in the porta-potty line now and not try to “hope for the best” during the race. Thankfully, there were 10 porta potties and the line, although long moves quickly.

Just after I was “finished”, the pre-race announcements and national anthem began. The KFD had one of their big trucks with a large boom ladder up over Neyland Drive, holding up a HUGE American flag as the national anthem played.

Fireball always attracts runners and this year was no different. I knew that it was important to position myself at race start to be up with runners of my ability and not hang back and try to make up the time during the race, the traffic would be immense. I had learned my lesson well at a crowded race at the deteriments of weaving through traffic, and so I wanted to place myself strategically to succeed.

The gun went off and the race started. I had placed myself pretty well. I was on the outside edge and up far enough that the people around me were running the pace I wanted to run. I still had to dodge some people who may have thought they were faster than they thought or just wasn’t using a Race Day strategy at all. Regardless, by the first 1/4 mile I had secured a location in race and felt good.

Mile 1: 7:44

I was feeling pretty decent at this time. I was running comfortably. I had established my lane and knew in 1/2 was the turn around. I avoided the traffic of the lone water station and held my pace.

Like I had mentioned before, this race and Expo 10k turned out to be almost exact in results. Good first mile, then everything falls apart, reduced to walking and regrouping. The only difference in this race was there was no cool slip and fall.

As I rounded the 1/2 way point, the running went from okay to labored. I could tell that I was starting to slow down in my pace and things were becoming difficult. I tried to analyze what was going on with my running, but nothing was making sense. I decided to get some liquid at the water stop.

Mile 2: 8:26 (16:10)

I’m actually starting to feel tired as I get to the water stop. Not fatigued tired, but sleepy tired. I feel like I could just lie down in the road and nap. When I got the water, I stopped to walk, something that I have rarely done in a 5k race before. I finish my water and move along.

The water helped some, I feel refreshed and running feels good again. But now, my head is starting to feel funny. I actually am starting to feel lightheaded, so I stop to walk. Very strange that I feel woozy while running, that had never happened before, so I was confused about what to do, so I want to experiment and see if I can replicate the feeling. Yes, I can. I start running again and sure enough I am starting to feel lightheaded and almost like I could pass out.

I reduced my pace to the point where the lightheadedness did not exist. With all the walking and slowing down, I had moved over to the left so that all the runners could pass me, and it’s just a 5k too.

With 1/4 mile to go, I start to think about how I was going to finish. Would I push it at the end (like normal) or just mosey in and call the race a loss. I didn’t really know until the final turn at the Mile 3 marker when I am behind this father-daughter pair and I am hearing the dad encourage the daughter to run ahead to the finish line without him and finish strong. She’s about 10 and she’s very tentative about it. Right after the turn she gives in and starts to pick up speed and pulls away from her dad. I pick up speed and chase her. I did this for a couple of reasons:

1)I can let her pace me so I don’t kill myself at the end
2)She’ll know someone is behind her and this will keep her going
3)If she does start to falter at the very end, I can be there to encourage her runner-to-runner to push it to the end

We pull away from the group with about 40 yards to go. I kept to just 1-2 steps behind her and began to run coverage for her. Even though I could out kick her to finish line just based on stride-length alone, she had worked hard during this race and deserved the finish. Although it wasn’t necessary, I was running right behind her, looking over my should to make sure that if any runner was going to sprint at the end, I was going to run in that space to protect her finishing place. It’s like we were team mates with her knowing.

Mile 3.1 10:13 (26:31)

The best part of the race was the cold race logo towel that they gave finishers at the end of the chute to help cool off. That was awesome.

So what went wrong? Why did I feel mentally that I could run a 23:30 but physically managed only a 26:23? The first clue was that I realized pretty quickly after finishing that Expo and Fireball had the same result, start okay, but finish poorly. Fireball had been different because I felt woozy, while running.

I finally admitted to myself that the productive coughing I was having was something in my lungs. In fact, it very well could have been allergies because I didn’t feel “sick” at all, but I would cough. This junk in lungs was causing a lack of oxygen to get to the lungs, even though I had Breath Right Strip on and had taken an Abuterol hit before the race.

Despite a bad performance on my part, my stats didn’t look all that bad. I finished 404 out of 1064 runners and place 39 out 75th in my age group. Percentage wise, those were about right on. But the fact of the matter is that I could have done better! I should have finished closer to 28th in my age group!

This year’s Expo was the first 10k distance in 2 years since the 2006 Expo 10k. I don’t remember why I didn’t run last year, perhaps a look in the archive would shed light on the details (oh yeah, pleural rub!). I was coming to this race fairly confident that I would have a good showing and although I would not reach a PR time (48:06 10-07-2000) I would feel that the speed work that I had been doing this spring would finally pay off. However, that did not happen and although I would really like to just put this in my History annals and move on, I am obliged to write a race report while it’s still fresh. I can’t see it right now, but there are clues to my running in this race that I won’t be able to see until sometime later, so I need the details to be fresh as possible.

Like most of my KTC races, I volunteer for pre-race duties, usually whatever is available. In the winter months, registration is desirable to have some shelter from the elements. This race, I was to help setting up the vendor and food tables. I showed up just after 6am (race start 8am) to help with tables. I ended up cutting oranges, cleaning tables, filling ice buckets, and hanging signs. Nothing too taxing, and I even did a little pre race warm up as I was running from place to place. However, I noticed that my legs felt heavy.

With 10 minutes to race start, I headed over to the starting line, hanging out off to the side by myself so that I could gage how people were lining up. Since I was here by myself, I was looking for racers that I knew by face and performance on the ideal place to line up. The start on Gay Street was narrow for the number of people, but the 0.75 straight away really allowed the runners to separate without running over each other.

After the National Anthem, the Wheelchair racers started and a about 2 minutes later, the runners. Like I mentioned, the congestion at the start wasn’t that bad. Sure there were plenty of people who were too far ahead than their pace would suggest, but I found a running lane on the right side of Gay Street and tucked in behind another runner to get through the crowd.

At the first mile, I realized that something was wrong. Although I had found my pace that day, it seemed somewhat labored. I had planned on running between 52-53 minutes and to keep that time goal, I was going to have to keep this pace… somehow. By mile 2, I had actually sped up by about 15 seconds, not sure how I did it but I did. Perhaps it was the almost flat course the first 4.7 miles follows before a decent hill at mile 5.

The Expo course shares some of the same roads as the Knoxville Marathon and the Run for the Deaf. I’ve run both, so I knew what to expect. However, just after the mile 3 mark, I was going to experience something I had never done in a road race before. My split time at mile 3 told me I was slowing down. I was now much slower than my first mile and keeping pace was getting difficult, although not impossible.

We ran past the Tennessee School for the Deaf and headed down to the Island Home Airport for the turnaround point. I must have been daydreaming about something other than running because as soon as I started around the cone, I slipped. I fell straight down onto my belly, my hands catching me as I fell.

I couldn’t believe that I slipped and fell! I had slipped a few times during trail runs, but that’s part of trail running, if you aren’t slipping and falling, you aren’t doing it right, but this was a road race. I have mentioned before, something with my Aspergian mind can detect force vectors while I am moving. This is why I always had great body awareness when I was playing soccer, but couldn’t miss the wall walking down the hallway. The millisecond that my foot started to slip, my mind was already communicating to my legs to layout straight and hands to catch my fall. The next command, half way down to the ground was to start churning my legs as soon as they hit to start to propel me forward. I fell in such away that I landed prone, but with a quick flip of my legs, I was in a sprinter’s stance ready to move forward, so I did.

The volunteer called out to me if I was okay and I muttered a reassurance that I was indeed fine, although I hadn’t done a full body scan yet to make sure that I was indeed intact. Sure enough, I seemed okay. I was most surprised that I wasn’t winded from landing on my stomach. Neither was I winded NOR did I have any abrasions from the road. I had only lost maybe 1-2 seconds of time, but I knew that it would catch up to me in my already ailing race performance.

Thankfully, there was a water stop close by as well as the long straight roadway out of Island Home. The nice thing about Island Home is their support from the running community. There were tons of people outside of their home cheering the runners on. However, I needed much more than cheering for me to race. Somehow, I proceed to continue.

I started to get a second wind around 3.5 mile mark when I attempted to do a submission for The Extra Mile Podcast. That was an utter failure and caused me to conserve all energy. I had nothing to share at this point. I was in a survival mode that was unfamiliar to me. Typically in my marathons, it’s fatigue in my legs that prompts me to switch from Running to Survival. Today, my legs felt fine, it was my cardio levels that wouldn’t cooperate, and I was at a loss.

I physically stopped at the next water stop to catch my breath and to regain my composure. I wanted to know WHY I was running as poorly as I was and try to fix it… I did have a hill at mile 5 that’s not too runner friendly… and after all I eat hills for breakfast and I didn’t want the tide to turn.

I had a good mile to think about possible causes on my predicament. My hypothesis is that I was too worn down from my workouts this week. I had run a 7 miler on Tuesday at a good 8:30-9 minute pace. It had felt good, but left my legs pretty sore. So instead of running on Thursday, I decided to work the soreness out swimming 800 meters, but my split times for the swimming were faster than my previous swim times. So in an effort to rejuvenate my legs for the race, I did but at the cost of sabotaging my cardio levels. It made sense why I felt like crap, but my legs felt fine. After another couple of days of thinking about the race, I think that volunteering disrupted my pre-race eating/drinking routine and that I need to rethink when I eat on days that I volunteer because I will ALWAYS volunteer when I can.

I shifted to a slower gear while running up the hill. This allowed my legs to do the work and my lungs to not work as hard. In the last mile, I started to think about the finish line and my kick at the end. Just because I was having a crappy race, doesn’t mean that I stop thinking about strategy during the race. With 0.5 mile to go, I determined that indeed I had enough for a kick at the very end, but I wasn’t sure how big that burst of speed was going to be and how long I could sustain it.

Knowing the course, the last 0.2 is a straightaway shot to the finish line. Typically, when I see the timer clock is when I go into “Finisher’s Mode” and begin my shift from running to final kick. Judging my energy level, I was going to have to be much closer to the finish line before I started my kick. Another change I had to make was instead of looking at target runners to overtake before the end of the race, I was just thinking of making the kick near the end, if I passed people great, if not, no big deal.

Just inside 0.1 of a mile is when I began my kick, I did manage to pick off one runner before I made it to the chute, but I was hurting. I could barely breathe, but in effort to not be a nuisance to the Finish Line Crew, I had ripped off my bib tag and held in the air as I desperately gasped for air. I finished in 55:50. The clock ticking away closer to 56 minutes was enough motivation to keep my kick alive. This was my slowest 10k to date, but not by much, my 2006 Expo 10k were I was under trained and took off too fast was a 55:21, so this wasn’t “terrible”… maybe Expo just isn’t my race.

There wasn’t a whole lot of fanfare at the Run for the Deaf this year. There was some worry that the weather would dump on us, as it was the weather was perfect, but rain would dampen the race.

I got to race early enough so that I could get a nice pre-race warm up in before reporting to race start. At race start, I saw that quite a bit of the fast runners were there in the front, so that I knew getting an age group award was out of the window for this race. And that was actually a stress that I didn’t have to carry the burden over the race.

The race started and it’s a nice downhill start. Although this is tough on the legs, it’s easier on the psyche and lungs as you pick up speed for the race. As I mentioned before, parts of Island Home is “Level Flat” not “Knoxville Flat”. Apart from the Start/Finish, the race is a combination of “Level-Flat” and “Knoxville Flat”.

Mile 1

So with a down hill start and the rest of the mile is flat. It’s really easy to go out fast. This is great if you are going for a PR time. However, if you are unexperienced, you’ll be out like at the 1/2 mile mark like the kid that was running ahead of me, then his friends caught up and he said “I’m Done” and proceeded to walk.

Mile 1 in 6:58

That, by the way, is a big forecasted PR pace for me. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold on to that pace, but my in situ race plans changed to hold on to that pace. In Marathons, the common Rule of Thumb is don’t go out to fast… which is on the money because it’s a long race and going out to fast is costly. However in shorter races, if you want to get a PR, you have to go out fast! The trick is finding that threshold which you can go out fast yet still maintain your endurance to carry you. If you go out fast, your body “feels” that speed, so when you “slow down” your body relaxes but that new speed may be faster than what you would have been running had you tried to start the race at a conservative pace and tried to get faster over the course. It’s easier to slow down at the end of the race, then it is to speed up. A consequence is that if you go out to fast, you exhaust your Kick at the end of the race.

Mile 2

I tried to hit a rhythm with my strides and breathing. I was far enough ahead in the mass of runners that I had little traffic in front of me, and I tried, as we rounded corners or curvy streets to take the shortest distance from point to point, even if it meant I was running on the other side of the street.

I could feel that I was starting to slow just a little and I wasn’t sure what the last little hill of the Second mile would do to me.

Mile 2 in 7:33

I remained steady up the hill, but it was tough to maintain that speed afterwards. Once back on the Level Flat Street, I could nothing more than try to keep my pace going. I was fading. With 1/2 mile to go, I was praying for a shoelace to come untied so that I could take a break. A quick look at my watch and I knew that I would finish somewhere under 24 minutes, even with a teeny-tiny stop. I moved along.

The finish is a 2 tier up hill with the first tier being shorter/steeper than the second teir. Neither of them are monster hills but you do have to work at them. Before the race, I had practiced my Race Finish, looking at landmarks that I would use to begin my final approach into the Finishing Chute. There was the Speed Limit 25 sign that I would use to start to accelerate. Then there was the rug that Duct Taped to the Road to cover a pot hole that would be the final kick. I had no energy left for either. I had gone out too fast and I had no Kick left at the end.

I was actually relying on people to shout out to friends and family running that they could “catch” the guy in blue for motivation to encourage me to run faster. For the last 15 steps, I did sprint, or do my best sprint imitation. After finishing, I had to lie down in the grass with a bottle of water to catch my breath.

23:27 Official Time
52 Out of 204 Finishers
10 Out of 14 Age Groupers (35-39)

I was fairly pleased with my result. My personal goal time was 23:30, which I was pretty close at getting, although, I wasn’t exactly happy at HOW I got it with the fast first mile. I was hoping for a little more evenly paced race. But What Can You Do?

I did win a Door Prize - Papa John’s Large One Topping Pizza… so with a decent Race Shirt and a Free Pizza Coupon, I didn’t walk away empty handed.

The second of two races on the weekend of April 19/20th 2008 was the Trideltathon, a sprint triathlon. The Delta Delta Delta sorority hosts the Trideltahon as a fund raiser for their local charity: East Tennessee Children’s Hospital. It’s a Sprint (meaning less than Olympic Distance) Triathlon that is held on the campus of Univesity of Tennessee. It consists of a 400m pool swim, 6 mile bike and 3 mile run. It usually draws a couple hundred participants and this year was no different.

This race was special to me because it fell on the 2nd Anniversary of my biological Dad’s death. I had to fore go the Trideltathon that year but was granted a pass to participate in another series event at a lower cost.

In the past, the swim had been in the indoor pool, but I think because instead of having around 200 participants, they were nearing 400, they moved the swim to the outdoor pool. There is nothing wrong with the outdoor pool except that it was only in the upper 50s while we were waiting. The pool swim is set up basedon anticipated swim times. The faster you are, the sooner you go. Since i had wrote down a 8:50 swim time, I was  in the back of the pack. I think i stood outside for about 20 minutes in nothing but my speedo… Oi!

If you read my Ribbon Run 5k Race Report, I had a little bit of equipment malfunction. Today was no different. My swimcap, as i was getting ready to put it on my head, split into two. Oh, well… I just hoped that my long(ish) locks of hair wouldn’t get in the way. I don’t think that speed gained by wearing a swim cap would be all that much for an amateur like me.

I was pretty chilled as I was ‘released’ to get into the pool, but the UT outdoor pool is heated. Ahhh, it felt awesome and I took off.

The Swim

The plan for the swim was to be consistant. The nice thing about starting near the back is that the traffic isn’t too bad. I found a good rythym and stuck with it. By the 3rd (of lap I was finding that I was passing some of the other swimmers who may not have been as fast as they thought. There is a HUGE difference between lap swimming and swimming in a triathlon.

At lap 5, I came to a point where I had to make a decision. There were two swimmers in the lane as I started Lap 5. I had been very consistant at this point and I was in the zone. As I came up on the two swimmers, both were struggling. I could tell in the water that the swimmer on the left was switching strokes to find something that worked, the swimmer on the right seemed to be doing a slow freestyle. I made an In Situ Race strategy Decision and plowed in between them. I know I kicked one of them, not hard, but I still hit him. This was a race, and I was not going to let him get in my way.

On Lap 8, as I was coming to the steps, I knew that I was doing well. When I saw my watch, it said 6:50 and I was shocked that I was doing THAT well. Later, I checked my watch and there was a 2:00 lap on there that I must have hit.

Official Swim Time: 8:47

Transition 1

I didn’t try to sprint to my bike. I just kept at a light run so that when I got to my bike I could get my stuff on. I had a small towel to dry my feet (I hate wet socks) and get my socks and shoes on. I put on a longsleeved shirt that already had my race number. Put on my Bike Helmet and yellow glasses. While in the transition, you HAVE to walk your bike. So I had to walk my bike out an the mount my bike and take off.

The Bike

The bike course hadn’t changed since I had last done the race. It’s 6 miles out and back mostly on campus. What this means is that it’s 1 mile downhill, 4 miles rolling hills and then 1 mile uphill. Since I hadn’t been on a bike in a while, I was only trying to survive the bike. I had a stomach bug earlier in the week, so I wasn’t going to jump on a bike on Friday and then Ride again on Sunday. I figured that my biking muscles would still be sore, so I was going for the “Shock and OW” method of performance. I didn’t do terrible in the bike… and I never had to walk the bike up Lake Loudon Drive. I tried to hydrate some as I was on the bike. I did get passed a couple of times, but they were by people with real nice bikes. My bike is a 1986 bike that I am basically “eternally” borrowing. One day, I’ll get a new bike, but this one is good-enough.

Official Bike Time 26:31 (officially contains both Transitions)

Cumulative Time 35:18

Transition 2

Again, you have to dismount and walk your bike to your rack, rack your bike, ditch your helmet and take off. I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade that I think that I would just ditch when I was done. So I was off.

The Run

My race strategy here was about the same as the bike, survive. I knew the course pretty well and the back-side is pretty brutal. I like hills, and this one has some big ones. When you get off the bike and go to the run, your legs feel like Jello. You don’t feel like you are running very fast. Some of this is perception and some of this is true.

I was feeling pretty good running. As a runner, this is where you can pass people left and right. Most cyclists who can blow by you on the bike, suck at running. Thus you can make up some time and the longer the race, the greater the advantage. What’s also nice in triathlons is that the put your AGE on your calf. Strategy wise, this is awesome. It makes it so much easier to figure out who you need to worry about and who you don’t.

Given that I had ran the Ribbon Run the day before, I had depleted everything in my reserve. I only had enough juice for about a 20 yard kick at the end. And I finished tired but very very pleased at my performance.

Official Run Time 22:40

Official Cumulative Time : 57:57

My personal goal was to finish in under 1 hour. I accomplished that and really had a decent showing. I think that I’ll be doing the sprint triathlon on Memorial Day and that I will do at least one longer triathlon, but I would love to do an Olympic Distance this year. I’m just not sure if I can get all the training in at this point. That’s not until June/July… so we’ll see.

Overall Place 151st out of 378

Age Group Place 11th out of 23

This will be the 1st of two race reports for this past weekend. I hope to get the other one written and published shortly after this one.
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The Ribbon Run 5k was a new race to me. This was only the second year of it’s existence and I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was being sponsored by the Breakthrough Corporation which is trying to establish a facility and resources for Adults with autism, so this was a natural race for me to support.

This is what it looked like on race morning:

Yeah, wet weather. It wasn’t cold rain, but it wasn’t warm either. If you were running, you were fine, if you were standing around, you weren’t. Since I was already preregistered, I was going to run regardless. I was actually thinking that this race would be a better performance than last week’s Spring Sprint 5k since the course was billed as “relatively flat”.

The race itself wasn’t all that exciting. It appeared that there were few people because of the weather and we all waited at the theatre until race start.

We started the race under somewhat misting conditions. A large cell had just past and so we were getting the residuals of that. The gun goes off and I am running. Nice thing about a lean race is that there is no traffic… the worst thing is that you don’t know who to pace with. Now the first part was pretty cool because it was flat and a small race, you saw the leaders right in front of you. That was cool.

Not 0.25 mile into the race and my left shoelace came undone. I already tied them in a double knot, but the water must have made them “heavier” and thus the motion caused them to come apart (i.e. Vectors). So, I stop and tied my shoe, giving up about 5 spaces. I’m not too worried, it’s early in the race. Not 0.1 mile further, my RIGHT shoelace comes undone. Okay, now I am getting upset.

Anddddd, roughly at the 0.5 mile marker, my left shoelace comes undone… again. I’ve stopped now THREE times. I made the decision that were my shoes unravel again, I would take them off and run barefoot. I finished with my shoes on my feet.

Mile 1: 7:59

The course was pretty flat and run in an new neighborhood and then a well-established neighborhood. Had the weather been better, it would have been a little prettier.

Mile 2: 7:26

Apparently, the 7:26 mile had taken a toll on my legs as they started to feel heavy. It felt like I couldn’t run faster. I ended up pacing behind a lady that I knew that was around a 7:45ish pace based on what I knew. I stuck with her until the very end. I could tell that I was getting a little recharge and would use this at the end.

As I turned on the final approach, I saw a guy well ahead of me. I thought there was a remote chance that I could catch him and so I took off. I ended finishing up right behind him. I would have needed about another 50ft or so to actually pass him

Mile 3.1 8:40 (My unofficial time 24:05)

I figured that with the low turn out that I would maybe place in my Age group. Nope. The prizes were cool… they were handmade wooden trophies in the shape of the puzzle piece (the universal symbol of Autism). The Overall age group prizes were metal robots made out of various hardware parts by a kid with autism. They were VERY cool!

So, I was pretty bummed on both parts: Not having a great time and not placing. My goal time for this race was a 23:30 and so the unfraying laces were a hindrance to my goal. It would have been nice to place in my Age Group, but the 35-39 age group is so FREAKIN’ FAST, I’m not sure if I will break into the Top 3 anytime soon.

Official Results are not posted yet

This race was the first of two races this weekend. The second, the Trideltathon, was being held in less than 24 hours after the finish of this race.

The forecast on Thursday and Friday FOR Saturday was a cold almost snowy forecast. I was beginning to wonder how that would play into the race and how it would affect my time. Luckily, it’s Monday and now the cold weather has hit the region, so for race day, it was near perfect racing condition.

The later start time (8:30) made it a lot easier to get ready in the morning. Somehow an extra 1/2hr really makes a lot of difference. I don’t know why… but it does. I made it to the race location with plenty of time to spare. For once, I was not pressed for time as I went to get my race goody bag and headed back to the car to drop off the non-race items. But hanging out at the car, I did look at my watch and realize that I better get to race start before I see the runners pass by while I was still in the car!

I made it to race start and listened to the standard fare of pre-race rules, sponsor list, etc. I was pretty ready to get the race started. I know the course pretty well (foreshadowing) and felt pretty comfortable with the layout. I was trying to see runners that I knew their typical pace as to set myself in the right location. Based on most of the guesses for my Guess My Time contest, I was expected to run somewhere around a 7:30 mile. Something I wasn’t sure if I could muster for 3 miles… but this is a race!

The gun goes off and I am jockeying for a comfortable place in the mass of runners. There were 250+, so the congestion was a factor for the first 1/4 mile. Most of the runners that took off too fast were being slowed by the first decent hill. Staying consistent, it feels like you are sprinting past these people when you know that really their slowing down.

Mile 1: 7:58
I knew right there that the 23:30ish would be out of the question. There were too many hills (foreshadowing) that speeding up would not be feasible for that strong of a finish under my current training. However, I knew that at my present speed, I was aiming for a 25ish finishing time and this just wasn’t acceptable. So, I increased my pace.

Going up the large hill, I moved over to the left out of the traffic and proceeded to churn up the hills. I knew there was a straight away reprise at the top that I could recover some before the hills towards the end of the course (foreshadowing).

Mile 2: 7:32
Oh there was a reprise… and I milked it for all that it was worth, BUT, I totally blanked on a small steep hill section before the hills in the residential section. Oi! that threw the race strategy a kink. So what do you do when your race strategy starts to fall apart during the race? That’s Right, you run to the side of the road, sit down and cry you size up the current situation and you make a new one. This is where Knowing The Race Course, is important.

Remembering this hill, I backed off my pace a little. Mainly to allow my lungs to catch up and adjust to harder workout. My plan was to back off slightly on my pace during the rolling hills and that I would save the rest for the very end, as a final burst of speed. The change here was that normally at this stage in the 5k, I am looking for runners ahead of me to over take at the end. This is a much more aggressive finishing tactic where The Kick (sprint at the end) is used to beat runners as opposed to time.

Given my current ability, towards the end of races, there are not a lot of people that pass me. But it does happen, and I don’t let it really worry me all that much. As I was nearing the final turn (about 0.3 from finish), a few more people had passed me than usual, no biggie.

Now in the final 0.3 mile, you start at the top of the hill, run down it, then a little bit up on the other side. The view from here is that you can see the finish the entire way from here. At this point, there was a huge gap between me and the two runners directly ahead of me. There wasn’t much of a chance to pass them because the first part of the downhill was recovery from the hills I just finished.

At this point, I still don’t have an idea of my time but I am trying to beat the clock. I’m coming down the hill with purpose. I’m now starting to let my stride widen as I try to increase my speed. The two runners are ahead of me, grouped together, they could be buddies or just running together to helping each other to the finish line but I was just starting the uphill and thought they were too far ahead of me.

Until this video popped into my head

And I let everything go and picked up speed. I’m not sure where I found the extra speed, but I found some. By the time I passed the two runners, I made sense of the finishing clock and it was just over the 24 minute mark. Official Finishing time 24:12.

I finished 9th out of 16 in my age group.

One weird thing from the race. My bib number was 69 (dude!) and so after an inner low-brow chuckle at that, I was surprised at the final results.

Place Name Gender Age Bib Time
69 Higgins, Terry M 36 69 24:12

I finished 69th out of 236 finishers…

Next Races: Ribbon Run 5k (April 19th) & Trideltathon (April 20th)

My duties this past weekend as a course monitor for the Knoxville Marathon was fairly straight forward. I was at the 0.35 mi from finish mark for ALL the races (Kids, 5k, Half and Full). I got to see it all. I was also at a fairly busy intersection where I was to flag runners in the right direction. I also had three police officers there to help.

This post is a humorous, but sad (as a Christian) event that occurred this past Sunday morning.

The scene was this:

It was well into the race, the 5k runners didn’t affect traffic to much because of their route. The Halfers and Full runners had to bisect Cumberland (the main artery). So, most traffic was continuing Easy and West on Cumberland. However a few people came down 11th street and wanted to turn left on to Cumberland to travel East. However, this was illegal during the race as the police wouldn’t allow it.

A red sports car comes down the 11th street hill, drives around the parked police car in the left turn lane and has turn signal on to turn left. The police officer points for him to turn right, that going left is not an option. The driver isn’t happy by this turn of events…

“I’m trying to turn left, my church is right there.”

“I don’t care. No Left Turn,” and the police officer points up the West side of Cumberland (i.e. Turn Right).

“Asshole!” the driver shouts as he guns his car up Cumberland.

Yeah, nice.

We actually thought the exchange was rather humorous, especially some of the drivers who were waiting for breaks in the runners to continue through the intersection.

The police officer didn’t miss a beat.

“That’s okay, in a little while, I’ll go up to the church parking lot and find his car.”

Chorus:
And they’ll know we are Christians
By our love, by our love,
Yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

This past weekend was the 2008 Calhoun’s 10 miler, the first in the Long Distance Series with the Knoxville Track Club. This was the 16th Running (I think) of the race and the 5th time that I had run it. It coincides nicely with a Spring Marathon since in a couple of weeks, there is the Strawplains Half Marathon.

Since this is a race that I know I am going to do in advance, I do two things. Pre-Register my entry form and sign up to volunteer for pre-race activities. The race is normally $15, but if I pre-register as a Knoxville Track Club member, I can take $3 off and if I go with a “no shirt” option, I can take $5 more off, making this race only $7. A real bargain.

My volunteer duties was with Registration. I would either help with Day of Race or Pre-Registered entries. I actually was a gopher for a while. There was a problem with the numbering. The person who does the preregistration showed up a little late and so the numbers were being issued for the day of race registration. This cause about 15 or so people to have the wrong bib and that had to be adjusted. I was able to help out with resolving this problem. I didn’t do anything fancy but it was nice to help.

Since I wasn’t running this race competitively (against the clock), I opted to stay at the Table until the very last moment. I had even decided that I would just stop off by my car in the first 1/4 mile to get the rest of my racing attire (hat & gloves) then to run out to the car and run back before the gun went off.

We had the national Anthem and the gun went off. I started towards the back knowing that I would be going to my car just moseying along. It was kind of nice. I wandered over to my car, not rushing, I got my hat and gloves and power gels and Clif Bloks. When I made my way back onto the course, I realized that I was the very LAST person. There was no one behind me and only a very slow jogger ahead of me. It was kind of a surreal experience knowing that I was the very last person. I knew that this was going to be short lived, but I kind of took it all in to try to gain perspective.

Once, I got situated I sped up some and started to easily pass the back of the packers. The Calhoun’s course is known for a leg buster of a hill going in the first (and again at the ninth) mile. It’s funny that a mausoleum and a grave yard is at the crest of the hill (I guess so the zombies have a good view).  But it’s not that it’s up and then evens out or a slight down hill. It’s UP and the DOWN! So on the way back, it’s UP and DOWN again. And the hill is steep, both ways (up hill without shoes… in the snow… and we liked it!).

Mile 1: 10:40 with the trip to the car and  big uphill

Mile 2: 8:52 with the big downhill and starting to find my comfortable pace

Mile 3: 9:17 thats more like it

Mile 4: 9:25

At this point, the non-competitive stance on the race that I had is beginning to wear off. I am starting to think that perhaps, I could speed things up. Of course, I hadn’t run this distance in a while and wasn’t really conditioned for this speed.

Mile 5: 9:06

Mile 6: 9:18

Mile 7: 9:16

I’m hitting a nice groove here. Coinicidentally, it’s the same pace that I was training at for my marathon last fall, so I think my body was recognizing this as “comfortable”

Mile 8: 9:18

Mile 9: 10:05 This has most of the big hill on the return trip

The last 3/4 mile is very flat by East Tennessee standards. Although around mile 6, I was beginning to be plagued with some gastro-intestinal problems (details I’ll omit)  and I had my chance to visit a porta-potty at the 1/2 mile mark. I decided to hold it and just make do (and not doo-doo… HAHAHA!). I’ve run this course 4 other times, so I knew how to handle the finish line. Once I was near the 1/3 mile to go mark, I started to pick up speed and then at the end just let everything go Full Throttle.

Mile 10: 8:21

I finished in 1:33:50 which was less than the 1:35:00 time I told My Lovely and Talented Wife was the time I was shooting for.

Funny thing was about this race is that I was fine on Saturday, a little sore on Sunday and Monday before the whole stomach virus thing, I was REALLY sore. When I ran the Chickamauga Marathon last November, I was a little stiff but never sore at all. I took no pain medication after the marathon. Very strange, but a good example on how conditioning can really make a difference both in performance AND recovery.

The forecast was for some wet weather in the area for today’s race. It never showed up when it was supposed too and good thing too. When it did show up in the evening, it was a monsoon.

At lunch while we were eating our GFCF pizza, My Lovely and Talented Wife asks me, “Are you going for a PR?”

“I dunno, it’s going to be a race time decision.”

“Don’t you think you better decide now?” she asked. And as I thought to myself, “Well, I guess I should decide”, I began to move to the goal that I would go after my PR time for the 5k of 21:56. But, I wasn’t exactly convinced. I needed to see if I got a warm fuzzy at race start.

For some reason, I always have a hard time getting to this race on time. Although I was early enough this year, I have in the past been sprinting to the start only to have the gun go off 10 seconds later. Today, I had enough time to get my bib number and put my ticket in for the Triple Crown Door Prizes. I made it back to the car with about 10 minutes to spare.

I pinned my running bib to my shirt and put on a Breathe Right strip. This was another indication that I was serious about going for a PR. My DNA blueprint for my nose must have not gotten the memo to have widened pathways for air intake. Couple that with some nasal cavity build up, it makes it harder to breathe and if you are needing oxygen at a greater rate, this is not a good thing. I don’t always wear the Breathe Right Strips, but I probably should on races that I want to perform. As soon as I had the strip on my nose, I could feel the extra volume of air, ahhhh… breathing!

We had our pre race instructions. I lined up only about 10 feet away from the starting line. If I am going for a PR it’s best to be as close to front as I can without impeding the fastest runners. Of course, I line up behind 2 girls that aren’t going to run as fast I am, so as soon as the gun goes off and we are 50′ into the race, I find myself have to dodge them as not to run them over.

Although I this was the 3rd time that I was running this particular course layout, I forgot a few things. Mainly, the hills after the first one!

I overheard a couple of people saying that the 1st mile was fast. Seeing that my watch had a split time of 6:40, I would say that was right. And I mapped the course out in Gmap-pedometer and sure enough, the split time was too soon. The second mile split does seem to be right and the course is right at 3.1 miles. Just like with other GPS based tracking system, you really don’t know the path they used to certify the course (and there is allowance for overage and underage). That is, the 3.1 course might be 3.05 or 3.13, who knows. Most race courses (from what I have read), really stay close to corners on turns (where us runners sometimes take the curves wider to avoid slowing down) and take a straighter path (and we may not be able to do that because of traffic)

During the first mile I wasn’t feeling quite “right”. I had had some stomach problems which had me make repeat trips to the bathroom early in the morning. So, early in the first mile, I was serious hoping that the Troops were not heading South. I was shadowing some faster runners for this first mile, since I didn’t get that much warmup before race start, I didn’t want to go out too fast, but since it was a short race, I didn’t want to go too slow either.

My Second Mile Split came in 13:55 (6:58 minute average mile) and I was probably running closer to a 7:00 min mile the first mile. I felt fairly comfortable even though I could tell that I was slowing down a little bit. I hadn’t remembered the mid race hills, just the one at the beginning and one at the end, so I hadn’t planned very well. Regardless, I was running pretty much the best race that I could at this point. Much better than my “Match” race last time, where like a match, I was REALLY hot to start off and then died in the middle of the race.

At Mile 2, I was still on pace for a time close to my PR time. I would have to pick up speed at the end to break it, but this was under the assumption that the 1st mile split was in the right place.

During the last mile, I was no longer worried that the “Troops were heading South”, now I was worried that the “Troops would head North”. Thankfully, I never got the nausea feeling, but I did think that this might be the first race that I would have to stop and puke.

The last 3/4 is flat save for a hill right at the 2.9 mile mark where you turn, go one block (up a hill) then turn again and 0.1 mile and your done. So during this 3/4 I had a younger runner pass me and this other guy and set out about 15′ ahead of us. At some point the other guy drops off and I am following the younger kid still 15-20′ ahead of me. I look ahead and I see a woman and a guy about 25′ ahead of the younger runner.

The woman is still ahead, but the older guy has dropped back and the kid has almost caught him and I am catching on the kid. Then we turn to the last hill. Advantage: Terry.

The last hill wasn’t as big as I had remembered, thankfully. The Kid has overtaken the Older guy and I am about to over take the Older Guy. Halfway up the hill, I pass the Older guy and focus on The Youth ahead of me. Could I beat him? He’s now ahead and the race is about over. So, before I crested the hill, which is also a turn, I go for it. I know that the finish line is around the corner and I am going to beat The Kid. I let everything go… somehow, I still had some extra energy stashed away because I had to sprint the last 0.1 of mile to catch him with about 30′ to go and then stay ahead of him for a 1.2 second margin of victory.

My official finishing time was 22:33, not a PR but I was really pleased at my performance. Given that at one point I though that I was running 10 seconds that my fastest mile, EVER and that I forgot about the hills in the middle of the race. Or that during the race, I thought I was going to purge at one end then, a little later, that I was going to purge from the other end.

I could get a 5k PR right now, or rather in 7-10 days, if I was on the right course, but there’s no 5k races that would support it. There’s a 5k race next weekend but the Day of Race registration is $30 (it’s a charity tie-in) and it’s been crowded before. There is a half marathon, but I am going to go after my Half Marathon PR in the Spring.

Although I was happy about the race, I wasn’t thrilled with time and I physically felt yucky. I went to the car and got my camera. I was not feeling like taking pictures but I did manage to take a few in between finishing the race and the awards.

Reindeer Race Door Prizes Won: None

Triple Crown Door Prizes Won: None

Overall Finish 50/390

Age Group Finish 6/15

Thanksgiving isn’t Thanksgiving in our household without going to the annual Autumnfest 8k, at least not for the past 7 years. In 2000, My Lovely and Talented Wife’s grandfather passed away right before Thanksgiving, his wake was thanksgiving evening with the funeral the next day. My Lovely and Talented Wife decided to join me since she had some extra energy and we weren’t leaving for Albemarle, NC until later that day. In fact, our Thanksgiving dinner was at an O’Charley’s restaurant.  We took that year’s race shirt and put an iron-on the back saying that we were running in honor of her grandfather. This is the only race shirt that I will wear at sanctioned races, all other races, I make an effort to not wear a road race t-shirt. Don’t ask me why… it’s one of those weird things about me.

Either we run the race or volunteer for the race or sometimes, if we can get a pre-race job, we do both at the same race. This year, I was part of the Day of Race sign-in crew and My Lovely and Talented Wife was part of the Finishing Line crew. But she didn’t stop there, she helped out with the post race food, which I missed out on (I’m not crying though) and actually took my spot with 3 minutes to race start so that I wouldn’t miss the race. She’s so sweet.

Pre Race
Day of Registration went from a slow walk to 5k pace in the matter of minutes. There were 3 of us there and we were processing people as fast as we could! It was extremely hectic! Come to find out there were over 800 people registered with 740 finishers, compared to last 2 years of around 600+ finishers. Plus the place that we were located was smaller than it was last year. We ran out of safety pins and we ran out of entry forms. People were having to use masking tape to fasten their bibs. I had two weird requests, one I didn’t get until I was thinking about during the race, the other was very obvious.

The first guy asked if I could reach down into the stack and get the number 777. We were pretty busy and I didn’t want to start to set a precedent for getting numbers. You get the number that you get even if it’s 666. So, it wasn’t until that I was running that I put 2 and 2 together and figure that he wanted 777 for the religious reference to the number “7″. The second request was someone came up while it was really busy and ask if he could change his number. Apparently, he didn’t like his number “666″. Well, I really couldn’t do anything at this point, because the entry form was already taken and entered into the computer. Had it been a smaller race, we probably could have swapped his number for something less controversial such as “69″ (dude) or “911″ but today he was running with the Mark of the Beast. Although if he ran on his hands, he would be “999″.

Race Start
I make my way out to the race start and I see the effect of how swamped we were at Day of Race registration… it was packed! There was no way that I would be able to get to the upper 3rd of the mass of people, I stuck off to the side and wished for the best. After the national anthem and the gun, I followed the mass to the starting line. I was still walking as I cross the start line… so much for a PR (not that I was shooting for one).

Mile 1
The biggest problem with Autumnfest is the start, for the first 0.25 of a mile, the mass of runners are confined to a one lane exit ramp, until you hit Neyland Drive, where it widens to 2 lanes. To make things a little worse, the exit ramp is enclosed with concrete barriers. So just as water expands out to the sides of it’s container, so do runners on the road. This in essence stifles the faster runners who are behind groups of slower runners, thus making positioning before the gun goes off to start the race much more important.

I was not making too many moves to pass runners though. I made that rookie mistake of weaving in and out of traffic once in a race and paid for it dearly. Instead, I stayed steady until it opened up, swung to the left and passed on the shoulder of the road. I now had a clearer path in front of me. Unfortunately there was a small demoralizing headwind. My Split time: 8:26 

Mile 2
At the call of the split time, I realize that I’m  about 20 seconds in the hole finishing time wise, but that I could still salvage something.  A cold light rain is now falling and I am wishing that I had some more layers on that what I have. I’m slowly picking up speed, but holding back some as I know where the hill is on the course and I have yet to reach it. My Split time: 7:44

Mile 3
With the hills out of the way, I know that I can speed up a little bit. I am pacing behind runners that are faster than me, glancing ahead to see the color of shirts. This way I can pick out my goal runner to beat, a standard race strategy. My Split Time: 7:27

Mile 4
I’m finally warmed up,  and things feel easier now. In addition, I am starting on the part of the course that I ran earlier in the week. I do an analysis to see how much I have left in the tank for the final approach. I’ve abandoned my normal “goal runner to beat” strategy. I know that my split times have been going down and that I can get a decent time, if I just hang in there. My Split Time: 7:27

Mile 5 (really 4.972)
I’m on auto-pilot right now, the test run in week of running the last mile has paid off. I don’t have to think about anything other than my pace. I’m not even concerned about the runners in front of me. As I divert onto the exit ramp, signaling the last 0.25 of a mile I look ahead for the time clock. I notice a group of runners in front of me and I find another gear and speed up some. I see the time clock in the distance about 0.1 to go and there are 4 runners that I can pass before the finish line. I have this finish line mindset where I “disengage” my brain from running and I really stop thinking about everything other than pass “x” number of runners, or the runner in the red shirt, etc. That’s my only focus and I lay it all out on the course. Here at the end, I disengaged and pass those four runners and came in just behind the last person of the group in front of us. I knew that I couldn’t pass them in the short distance, but I was able to cut the distance to nothing.  My Split Time: 6:52 (but with the extra 0.028 mi for a standard mile, the pace was really a 7:04)

A 38:26 official finishing time is not bad at all for me considering the congested, windy, cold start. The fact that I was able to maintain negative splits as well is very encouraging as well. So, a nice Thanksgiving run in honor of My Lovely and Talented Wife’s grandfather overall.  I finished 187 out of 740 and was 29th out of 54 in my age group. The guy who won my age group came in 24:58! Now, that is FAST!