Shamrock 5 Miler (Madison)

Finally, my 3rd race of the season.

I have to say, I really wasn't looking forward to this. When you race as seldom as I have this year, the idea of stepping out and running a 5 mile road race on a Sunday morning when I should probably have been running for two hours. After all, I have a marathon to run in June.

I got there with my son Ian in tow, and I'd managed to convince him to actually run the kid's race. That was great. Ian has been all over the map about fun runs and probably the best part of the whole experience to hear him still saying later that day that he a) wanted to run more fun runs, and b) it would make him in better shape. Getting him ready and signed in and handing him off cut my warmup down, however, it was worth it to have him out there (out in the back, to be honest) and running- and enjoying it.

I got my warm-up in and then I was standing at the line talking to Maureen Terwilliger and Martha Merz. Yes, the Martha that was in DC is now back in CT. We were all downplaying how well we were or weren't going to run.

Ken PLatt came up to me before the race and asked me if I was planning to swing my number round from back to front. If you know me, you know this is a pet peeve. One of the reasons that I hate the B tag is that it is supposed to be worn on the chest in fromt of the body. When are the people who make these things realise that a good portion of us would be caught dead before we'd drive four pins through a singlet we've paid more for than we pay for our clothing. (Disclosure: I spent more on training gear last year than actual clothing. I know. Lame, right ?)

I did indeed swing my race belt round to the front.

And then we were off.

As I get- more experienced (read older)- I get more frustrated with young kids that bolt out at the start of a race. I know, it's youthful exuberance. It's also silly. I can see it in a 5K, but we're talking about a 5 mile road race. I expect a little discretion but of course that never happens. The kids go nuts and you are left trying to figure out which ones are bat-shit crazy and which one or two are going to eat your lunch and make you look like the aging man you really are.

I know every inch of the course. There's one short loop on the way out that isn't part of most of our rides or the Madison Triathlon, but not much.

It was clear from the get go that two of the guys were simply going to crush me. Somehow I managed to move up from 15th to 3rd- briefly- at about half a mile. But I could hear two guys behind me and as I made a left hand turn about a mile in they were pretty much on top of me....

Given the shape I was in at the time, I knew better than to try and get into a back and forth 20% into a race. I let them go and concentrated on what Eric says 'My job is to do my job.'

Maureen was close behind me, but she wasn't really pushing, which was good. We got out along the sea wall and of course it was cold and the wind was blowing in, but not that hard. The run out to end of the loop was pretty uneventful. We down two blocks and then cut back in, dropping back down on the road that we had been going out on (think a lollipop with a little candy top) and that's when things got really interesting.

The people coming out were all over the road, and I had tow guys and Maureen close behind. Now this is the same road along the seawall in Madison I ride on all the time and I know every twist and turn of it, but we were running against the meat of the pack, who were about 1/4 to 1/2 a mile behind us.

Me being me, I went on the offensive, basically picking my line and challenging anyone who really wanted to dance to not move. Everyone moved. I worked us all the way over to the right on the tangent, and then as we headed to that small bridge over the fen, which is a nice wide arc, I decided to switch the side of the road. It was the right time to make the move, and we easily negotiated the traffic.

One guy who had been pushing me from behind was right on top of me now and I went to the middle of the road because it was safer, if not the best tangent. At one point a car got on the course but he wisely stopped so we could get by and then I got passed for the last time in the race.

I was sure another guy and Maureen were going to pass me as we made the left-hand turn, but they didn't, and now I was starting to feel the effect of racing something longer than a 5k, especially after riding nearly 3 hours the day before.

We made the right and the next left and that's the home stretch- we were headed home now, running past the golf course, and all I could do was run my ass off with two people bearing down on me the whole time. I just wasn't going to give any ground though and I ended up beating the guy behind me, and winning my age group, by 3 seconds, and Maureen came in a few seconds after that.

I was glad to win my age group and finish 5th or whatever. But the funny thing is, the warm-down after the race was really better than the race itself. Running a 5 mile road race is not going to help me reach my goals. I went back out with Martha and took her through the Madison Triathlon 5k run. We ran it pretty hard and doing that after a short break was even better than the post-race beer. It made me feel like I hadn't, I don't know, wasted a Sunday run with a short race.

That's pretty out of the box thinking for me...

Shamrock 5 Miler and Fun Run, Part 2

So we finished up the kids race and I helped Margit get the stroller set up so she could push Ian, while she told me I'd better get my warmup started. If you wanted to read a real blog post, then you'd have to read her account of running five miles pushing the stroller. But you won't see that here, so you'll have to settle for another boring race report from me.

Sorry.

I lined up and two people caught my attention right away- Jesse Efrom and Mike Gyulay. On my best day and Mike's worst, I might push Mike for 3 miles or so in a 5 mile race. On my best day, I might be able to see Jesse for three miles. No one else set off any alarms, then again, I'm sure I wasn't setting off any alarms for either Jesse and Mike.

They started us off and the course is flat for a long time- a long time. This isn't the type of course that plays to my strengths- you basically just start running and hope for the best as you head away from the surf club.

To be honest, until I saw which way we were going from the start, I really wasn't 100% sure what the course was. I ride on a large part of the course almost every weekend, and had previously seen a 3 on the road I thought might be part of the course, however, the last time I'd run the race, we'd run across the soccer field at the start and couldn't begin to tell you what else we'd done.

So here I was, running by the guard shack, less than a 1/4 mile into the race, and I'm in second, chasing Jesse, with Mike just sitting on my heels. The little voice in my head was reminding me that if Mike, who is a faster runner, was behind me, I was probably running too fast early. But hey, I don't know what kind of shape Mike is in, and more importantly, I'm not Mike, So I didn't make any changes to what I was doing, I just ran- a little too hard. The road was flat and straight and then there were two pretty quick turns. I think Mike went by in the turns, and now I was in third and by the mile mark, I was already really in third, a good five or six paces off MIke and growing.

Jesse was in control of the race, and I mean really in control of the race. No offence to Mike, who was definitely kicking my ass, but Jesse putting down the hurt.

By the time we wound our way to the sea wall, I had to shift mental gears. Although I'd been keeping Mike in my sights because I was still evaluating how far he was ahead, what I needed to do to close the gap, because that's what you do, by the time I hit two miles, I certainly knew that I was racing for third. And I could hear the guy in fourth behind me. I could hear his footsteps, I could hear people cheering him on. I had five or six seconds, and that was it.

And I just kept running. I didn't try to evaluate that feedback I was getting. I took it for what it was, that someone was in range, but I was in front. I hit the one hill on the course, powered up it, took another turn. At the next turn, I could have dipped my head to the left- not a look back, just a head dip.

To me, it's the same thing. If you look back, well, I don't look back, that's me.

And then we took one more turn and we were running in the wind and we would be running in the wind the rest of the way.

There were a few turns left and then we were running back towards the clubhouse and I was tired, but I was trying to bear down and find half an extra gear, because someone was chasing me down.

There's that moment right at the end of the race where the finish chute is so close that you can just take it home and even though you're not finished yet- that's the sweetest moment in a road race, maybe half a dozen steps from the finish, with just enough of a cushion that no one is catching you and no one's close enough in front to catch, and you can just relax- not physically, but from the neck up.

And then it was over, and I hadn't been caught and I didn't feel half like throwing up, so it was easy to go back in the chute and shake the hand of the guy behind.

I grabbed Dave and ran a warm-down, and even though I came in at 30:06, I'll take it and head on to the next race.