Independence Day 5000

Filed under: Better late than never.

There was a time, when I started racing, that 5Ks were my bread and butter distance. I was in my mid-30s, ran 70 miles a week, ran twice a day. I'd run anything, but 5ks were my race of choice. I could go, run a mile warm-up, run the race, do a half mile warm down and go home.

Hard to image. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Absolutely not. There are moments (when I'm in the Sound and the water is so rough I can't see the buoy 20 feet in front of me) I wish maybe I was still that guy. 5Ks are affordable, the training for them is reasonable, the equipment is affordable...

Those moments always pass. I can't hear Clocks without wanting to be in water of Mirror Lake at 6:59 AM. Or Beautiful Day. I may be kidding myself about being a triathlete the same way I was kidding myself back then about being a serious runner- I was never willing to do the speed work, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, I showed up early, grabbed my registration stuff, and went out and ran the course for a warm-up at 7:30 pace. Is that a warm-up pace for me, looking to run about 5:45 ? Who knows ? (Eric knows) Who cares ? I wanted to run the course twice and know I'm a lazy bastard and that after 'giving everything I had (cough cough, eye-roll)' I would wimp out on the warm-down after a mile. Also, Margit's workout would start when my finished, so I needed to run and get home, epecially because we had a party and dinner lined up. And even 10K is barely a workout...

I love this course. Margit and I have both won races on this course (although not this race) and I had my best 5K in several years on the course last year. I spent the last 15 minutes before the race lining up a perfect straight line run through the start, which is uphill and winding. I was all set.

Then about a minute before the race this woman in basic running clothes, training shoes, kind of, well, solid for an top runner, and her boyfriend, who was clearly just well, not a top runner, lineup right in front of me and the guys next to me.

I didn't want to say anything. For all I knew she was some hotshot runner (her boyfriend, not so much).

We started. She totally blocked me. It was insane. The start is very tight and once you are packed in, you really have nowhere to go. She had me absolutely pinned behind her and her boyfriend. It was just like one 3000 I ran in high school where I got boxed in by the other team. Experience told me to bite the bullet, take a few hesitation steps, and get the frak around her and her boyfriend, who was already fading.

I was not all happy thoughts because I then had to work on the hill to return to contact with the people I should have been in contact with. If I hadn't been with Charlie Hornak after the race when I did see her, I might have made a regrettable comment to her, like I did during the race at Griskus to someone.

The race gets off to a fast start. Cheryl Anderson, the first woman and a Branford resident, was right in my general area. I knew as we took the first two turns and headed up towards the seawall that I was not quite at last year's pace, but there were a lot of people around me and I worked up the hill to pass some of them. Then it's mostly downhill after the turn at the top of the hill to the mile mark.

I was on pace to run 17:50 or so. I went through the mile mark and there was a lot of backside pressure but I was trying to run my own race. Cheryl passed me in here I think and decided against battling anymore. I'd try to stay close, but I don't get points for my team- it was a USATF-CT race- for beating unattached (or attached) women. Just open and masters men.

I was a little tired. I'd ridden 60 miles the day before at an aggressive pace because, well, I'm a triathlete. And stupid. Don't forget stupid. I was coming back to the best 5K I'd run in years, a state championship, and running on tired legs.

I could still see George Buchanan, but he was like a mirage wrapped in the pain of my slowness.

We climbed the hill, the course's big hill, and then hit more downhill as we wrapped around a neighbourhood. I took a cup of water at the water stop and poured it over my head, because that's what I do.

I battled back and forth with a couple of runners, wrapped back around towards the main road, remembering from my warm-up that the perceived uphill basically is non-existent.

Then it was downhill again and I was on fumes as we turned the corner and ran towards the back-door entrance to Foran High School. As we made that last turn, I was passed or last contact with three runners, which was hard to take- two would finish just a second ahead of me when I made one last, late- just too late surge.

But when I saw the clock I knew I was breaking 18 for just the second time in the last two years, and although it was 18 seconds slower than last year, I guess I'll take it.

I'm a triathlete after all. Why am I running 5ks anyway ?

Oh yeah, to break 17:30.

Damn!

I had a nice conversation after the race with Keith 'Newton' Guinta, then warmed down with Charlie.

Glad I went ? Sure. Happy with how I ran ?

Of course not...

Independence Day 5000

I took a break from my Ironman taper to run the Independence Day 5000 in Milford, only because it's a USATF-CT championship. I went to the race with Henry Brown, who is over from the UK to visit. He was kind enough to drag my sorry behind around for about two hours on the bike yesterday and also head to the 5K today.

I wasn't expecting much- after a brisk ride and run yesterday I was pretty sure it would be a slow go and and the 15 minute warm-up I took with Henry and Charlie Hornak did nothing but reinforce that idea. Although my knee and achilles felt pretty good, I seemed to be a little sluggish through the first mile and an half of the warm-up. However, I often feel that way when I first get to a race, and I've learned some good strides can set things right to some extent.

I did my strides for about 10 minutes, and remembered back to a year ago. At that time, my right knee had been really sore. I couldn't do a knee bend, and this race had been a challenge to get the knee loosened up to run. Things are much better these days. Ice seems to help a lot.

The massive flood of race day registrations- some 400- left the data input team scrambling and it was announced that the race would start ten minutes late. That was frustrating, but expected (see last year's blog post). It's just too much for two people with laptops to handle. Still, it's always hard to be warmed up and ready to go and then have to reboot.

I waited for about ten minutes, talking to Charlie and Henry, then decided to start doing more strides.

The race started twenty minutes late, but no complaints here, and everyone seemed pretty relaxed about it. The race starts on an uphill, winding a little bit into a 70 degree right hand turn. As happened last year, the field surged ahead quickly, with the middle sagging backwards as the edges pushed forward.

Generally, I've gotten really good at being patient. But I've been doing mostly longer races and duathlons. You can't be as sedate running a 5K as you would be in a shorter race, or at least I can't. Other guys with more speed can, but I have to have a decent first mile if I want to have a decent 5k. So I started to work my way around people. We turned out onto the main road and I was alongside the leading woman and we took the left up the hill. I got caught a short there but negotiated the sewer grate.

Going up the hill, I passed George Buchanan. I was keeping my eyes on Henry's back, trying not to let him get too far away. Passing George gave me some confidence and worried me at the same time, but I figured I would press my advantage if I was running well. We all crested the hill and I really worked the downhill, which basically lasts a little past the 1 mile mark, which I hit at 5:25 or so. Then it's another uphill. I passed more people and kept pushing. During warm-up I'd seen that Marty had marked the 1.5 mile spot, so I decided to push until I got there, then moderate my effort going up the hill, which I did.

We turned the corner and I was back and with one of the Hitek open guys. I also knew that George was on me and I was hoping he was going to be going through soon. The course is pretty much downhill after that last climb and I decided to try and push the downhill as much as possible.

The last mile is basically three stretches, two of them long and fairly straight, then a wind into the parking lot. I kept wondering where George was. It turned out that he was nursing a sore hamstring and was running 'just hard enough' to beat another team's top Grandmaster- which he did. He went by at around 2.6 and dropped a 13 second hammer on me.

I hit the 3 mile mark at 16:40, rejected the notion of sprinting for a sub-17, and ran 5:33 pace for the last 1/10th of a mile. That's fine because I ran 5:34 average for the whole race. Henry cracked 17 with a 16:58.

I haven't run a 5K within 30 seconds of this in the last four years, as far as I can tell. I'm psyched- I think if I taper well now, I might just do okay in Lake Placid.

Independence Day 5k

Wow. A record crowd showed up for the 5K in Milford (USATF-CT Championship race #3). 400 hundred race day registrations, which was enough to blow through the all the registration forms, race goody bags, and force Marty to delay the race by twenty minutes.

I was certainly not expecting much. I did do three hour plus runs in the week since the Fairfield race, but not were speed workouts. With my knee being sore still, it's much easier for me to go out and ride- 60 miles on Sunday, 42 in 2 hours yesterday. I rode hard yesterday, pushing in the wind and going after some decent hills.

As the sanctions representative for USATF-CT and a member of the LDR committee, it's great to have such a large crowd for the race. As an athlete, well, the guys that show up because it's a USATF-CT race are better athletes (than me, that's for sure) and that means my name sinks down the results list like a stone.

Holiday races tend to offer one feature other races may not- costumes. Guys in red,white and blue top hats, suspenders or other patriotic gear. This year, I saw a guy in his late 60s or early 70s in cowboy boots. He started, unbelievably, in the third row. He apparently ran the entire race in the boots- no socks. I'm thinking some really scary blisters happened there.

The front was really tightly packed and as often is the case I wanted to get a team box going but there were only three of us standing right there. First Chad Brown was nice enough to move his feet a little, then I got some help from one of my teammates and managed to get off the line. My right foot had actually been turned out and back, which is not how you want to start a short race.

Sort of. The race featured some pretty serious false starts, which I won't go into because they were accidental and did not affect the finish. Meanwhile, although I was in the second row, the middle sagged backwards while the ends went forward. The race starts up a sort of sloping grade. Hill would be a strong word, but not much. I was in about 60th place as we took the first turn. I was behind a number of women, several kids in basketball shorts and high-tops, this guy Rodney with the the big head band, and possibly, although I can't confirm it, Doc Whitney.

It could easily turned into panic time, however, a number of people around me are people I should be either right behind or in the area of as I watch them run away, so I settled in. My knee had been bothering me all through the warm-ups, during strides, and I tried doing a knee-bend once and that was definitely a bad idea. However, as I started running hard- but controlled- it really didn't bother me. In fact, it might have helped me have a better race by forcing me to run a little slower.

I was just over 5:30 for the first mile and I seemed to be out-dueling people on the hills. There was a lot of back and forth and a few guys passed me, but I felt like I was having a good, controlled race. I hit 2 miles at 11:20 and still going ok. Marty saw me when I gave the V sign and he called out my name.

I was a little gassed in the last mile. I haven't run a 5K since Christopher Martins. I let one guy get passed me, but other than that, I held my won as we took the last turn. I was sure Kerry was bearing down on me and teammate or not, I didn't want any women beating me. That's silly, I suppose, but oh well.

I went through at 17:48. Wow ! First, it's kind of sad that 17:48 would excite me. Five years ago, I was still running sub-17s on really good days. Of course, I was probably running 5-6 days a week back then, still doing speed work, and so on.

However, it's a good time for me. The last time I broke 18:00 minutes was a 17:59 at Christopher Martins in 2005 and it was my fastest time since a 17:47 at the Corporate Challenge in August 2005. It was also 20 seconds faster than last year, although last year's race was my best training day before Lake Placid (I followed up the race with a 98 mile ride, my longest of the year outside the Ironman). 18:08 was the closest I had all last year, even the one race I won...

Better still, teammates of mine were the top man and woman- Kerry for the women, Oscar for the men.

But the biggest shocker of all- Charlie Hornak shaved his head...