Monday, February 2, 2015

Gameday 5K

Due to a down week between races in the Winter Series, and because my social life is non-existent, I opted to race the Gameday 5K this past Sunday in downtown Colorado Springs on a whim. There’s absolutely no reason why I should’ve expected a decent race, as my training is limited to short 30-minute runs in the morning before school, with nothing that can be remotely close to being considered “fast.” But, I’d raced a surprisingly-respectable 8-miler at last weekend’s Winter Series #2, and I was curious as to what that could translate to on terrain that wasn’t undulating and icy mountain trail.

Waking Sunday morn, I made the slow jog over to the race as my warmup, about 2.5 miles from my house. Flabbergasted upon arriving at the race scene, I would soon discover there would be close to 600 racers in the 5K alone (another 500ish in the half-marathon that would also be racing).

A couple minutes of terrified hyperventilating later (to this day, cannot race without an initial anxiety attack), I ran some quick strides, then hopped on the starting line. It was sunny, but still pretty chilly – probably no warmer than 30 degrees, we were lucky that there was hardly any wind. Trying to not be a total idiot, I decided to race clothed this time around, sticking to some shorts, tee-shirt, and gloves (also, some sick shades to hide my deer-in-the-headlights look). I also opted to race in my Hoka One One Cliftons, as I’d been feeling pretty great in them recently, and finally had to chance to use the road shoe on … well, some roads.

Because this was my first road race since my collegiate days, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I had no idea how I’d react to some back-to-back sub-6 miles, as: 1. I hadn’t run that fast since June, and 2. I’d NEVER run that fast at 6K ft. of elevation. But I came in with a goal of going sub-18, which would equal roughly 5:50 pace per mile, and based on last week’s performance, something I figured I’d be able to manage. Maybe. Hopefully. We’d see.

The whistle blew, and we were off, me quickly finding myself in ~6th place. Two runners nearly sprinted to the lead, and I was happy to let them go, telling myself to relax this first mile, then negative split as long as I felt good. We started down a relatively steep downhill, and within a quarter mile were we onto a packed dirt trail, three of us running in a pack, chasing three runners ahead. I chilled the first mile, taking the lead of our chase pack but making sure to relax until we hit the first mile: 5:40ish. A tad faster than I had wanted, I took stock and felt pretty good, so decided to leave my pack and start bridging the gap to the 3rd place runner. The two leaders were already at least 40 seconds ahead, but 3rd place was within 20 seconds, and I could tell I was slowly gaining.
(Getting my kicks off beating high schoolers)
The race was an out-and-back, and as I neared the turnaround cone, I saw first and second come blazing by me, probably with ~a minute lead on me. But, I was able to catch 3rd place right at the turnaround, relatively close to the two-mile marker, and decided to throw down. Used to longer races, the fact that I only had 1 more mile was a relief, and making sure I had nothing left, I opened my stride and really started pushing. Plus, the fact that I was currently in 3rd place (podium!) was pretty motivating, as well as passing the rest of the runners still making their way out (hearing a couple Go Mr. Welch! means at least a few of my students saw my atrocious form).
(Sucking wind, hard)
I checked my GPS watch a couple times that last mile, and surprised myself when I regularly found myself running 5:30ish pace. It was around 2.6 miles when things started hurting, and I probably checked the distance left on my watch every 0.1 miles until the finish. Soon though, it was in sight, and I threw in one last kick, finishing down the last straightaway with the clock in sight, ticking up to 17:45, 46, 47…
Even the race officials are amazed I managed to finish with THAT kind of form...

My official time was 17:48, a 5:46/mile average, and good enough for 3rd place overall. To be quite honest, I was ecstatic with my time, despite finishing ~a minute behind 2nd and 1:20 behind 1st (uff da). But this race marked my first “fast” (in quotes for a reason) effort here in Colorado, and the fact that I was awarded 3rd place up at the award ceremony was a pretty cool experience. Obviously, there’s still a lot of work to do, but my first month of real (regular) training is starting to pay off. The Winter Series #3 race isn’t until February 14th, which means I’ve got a little less than two weeks to put in some solid training before a trail 10-miler with some stiff competition!

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