But the final meet of the season always draws some pretty good in-town talent and Sam and I figured this one would be a good starting point for my season. Besides, the 5k is a good race to judge fitness and all that good stuff. Better than some crazy track time trial anyway.
Before the start of the race, I had done exactly two 5k paced workouts, neither of which I would consider incredibly impressive. Both were run at just over 15 flat pace, and they both consisted of 800 meter or shorter segments. Not exactly confidence inspiring, but still quality workouts. I have done plenty of mile paced (or mile effort) hill repeats, which is every bit or more important to running a fast 5k. But it is a little bit mentally tough translating mile paced efforts up a slight incline on a gravel trail, to the track. And then there are my cruise miles. My fall back and typically favorite workout, haven't been great this season. And that includes my Thursday morning attempt at 2x3200 and 4x200. I didn't even make it through half of the workout. Disappointing.
So going into this meet, I wasn't feeling particularly fit, fast, confident, or inspired. It's not that I thought I would run poorly, but training had been average at best and after a long layoff, running fast over a shorter distance seems daunting. But the meet was on the schedule and I needed to do it. It would set the tone to my entire fall training. If things went well, I'd really push for a fast Seattle Half Marathon time. If not, I'd muddle through the rest of the year, run a 50k and drink more beer than I otherwise would. So at least in my mind, this race was a big deal. It might be a small time, no pressure type race, but I knew it was very important to my mental frame of mind.
So for this little 5k I went through the full range of emotions. About four nights before, I was about asleep and my awake dreams were starting to to wander and turn into night dreams, I had an adrenaline dump. My whole body went tense for a split second and my heart started racing. Over the weekend my feelings about the race went from excited to anxious to nervous to "lets get this over with." Monday at work was mostly the get it over with feeling. What happens, happens.
I left work at 6:15 and enjoyed my nice easy pedal over to Civic. It was a cooler day. I don't think it ever topped 70, so I had that going for me. I parked my bike and signed up for the 5k. I had well over an hour to kill before I had to race so I just parked myself in the grass, er, turf and relaxed. The wind seemed to be picking up little by little and I added a couple of layers up top. That had me a little worried, since I was fairly certain I'd be out front the whole way. I was forced to move to the other end of the field because of the bubble machine and all the crazy kids. Cute, but the bubbles were leaving soap marks on my glasses.
I walked to the other side of the field, near the finish line and hung out with Ken Koenig for a while. The whole time it seemed like we were getting more and more wind. Eventually it was time to warm up. I headed out of the stadium and across the street to the small trails. I jumped on to the elevated walkway on Fraser and over and around Grizzly and onto the creek trail. After dumping out by Deihl Ford i just ran back to the track including a two minute T paced acceleration. I felt surprisingly good on the warm up but not great on the acceleration part. But by now I know to ignore all of that because it rarely indicates how I will feel during the race.
I will throw in some product review and shameless promotion of my sponsor. My Saucony gear is awesome. I love the Vizi-Pro orange. It stands out. You can't miss me. And while some runners want to blend in with the crowd and not draw attention to themselves, I'm sure Saucony likes having their athletes stand out. Their half tight is great. Super comfortable and fits perfectly. The singlet runs a little big, but I'm also pretty damn thin so maybe that's the problem. But it never felt baggy or billowy. I apologize to all you bikers out there, but I love the arm warmers, and, as a certified runner dork, I endorse them 100%. And then there is just something about looking fast that helps you feel fast before you start the race. And the A4's performed beautifully. After my sore calf incident with track spikes, I knew I didn't have enough time to get ready to race in them. But one workout and one race in a brand new pair of flats, and no blisters, rubs, irritation at all. And they felt great!
The race must have started at about 8:45 as scheduled. We had a pretty big group. Peter Oviatt had about 20 of his kids from the Whatcom Tesseract group at the race. There were kids of all ages at the starting line and also adults of all ages. I knew it would be a cluster, but that's just the way it works at an all comers meet. After a brief chat at the start line, it seemed like nobody had plans to go out any faster than 75's except me. I threw that right out the window when I went through the first 200 in 35 with a couple guys in tow. I hit the first lap in about 70. Yikes, too fast. But it was easy. It was a good feeling. I quickly settled into what ended up being 73 second pace for the quarters. I was pretty much dead on for laps 2-9. I started lapping the youngsters before the 800 meter mark (that's the start of the race, not the finish). I kept breaking the race into segments. Lap 1. Mile 1. First 800 of mile two. Second 800 of mile 2. Only a mile to go. Subtract the extra 200. 4 to go. 3 to go. 2 to go. 1 to go. Laps 10 and 11 I hit the pudding and slowed up a bit. Consecutive 75's through heavy traffic and a slight pick up in the wind. I was struggling a little but still controlled. Sam kept calling out splits on the opposite end. With 600 to go he got on me about the finish. Good last 400. My last three 200 splits were 37, 35, 34 to finish in 15:14. No official timer. Just the finish clock and my watch, which I didn't split correctly. To my surprise, one of the local high school kids finished 6 seconds behind and one of WWU's runners at about 15:30. Pretty good results for an all comers meet. Shout out to RB Wick for setting a huge PR and running 15:59 and more importantly weighing in at a scant 171 lbs. And special thanks to Carolyn Watson for taking the amazing pictures I'm posting. And thanks to Holly, Nanc, Gulleys, Grichels, and all the spectators who came to cheer everybody on, including the ones who called me orange guy! It was a great night. I remembered and reaffirmed that I am indeed still a decent runner, and that I hadn't forgotten how to go fast, and that I am not far from the fastest version of myself. That should make things easier for the upcoming races.
