Goal: to run consistent splits, to have enough energy left for a strong finish.
Goal: to improve on my personal record of 55:29
The first Monday of September is Labor Day, a national holiday, and traditionally marks the end of summer and the beginning of the school year in many areas. At Emory we started classes last week (Wednesday Aug 27) and the public schools in our area began earlier in August. As Labor Day is still three weeks ahead of the autumn equinox, it's generally still quite warm, but in Atlanta summer temperatures will now gradually begin to drop and the next two months are often quite nice.
In the Atlanta running community, there are a large number of athletic events on Labor Day weekend including many 5K races, some 10K distances and even one 20K race. I decided some time ago to run the Big Peach Sizzler, a 10K race sponsored by the Big Peach Running Company and a fundraiser for a cystic fibrosis foundation, Miles for Cystic Fibrosis. Our main research project at this time focuses on a naturally occurring compound, brevenal. Brevenal was first discovered as an antidote for red tide toxin poisoning, but was subsequently found to improve lung function in an animal model for cystic fibrosis, by thinning the lung mucus and increasing tracheal mucus velocity, essentially helping to clear the breathing passages. Although we are not working specifically on cystic fibrosis, but instead working toward a better way of preparing brevenal, it was interesting to realize the connection between our research project and the fundraiser for this race.
Getting back to the race, the Big Peach Sizzler offers a "super-fast" course. I've become a little jaded about courses that are advertised as "fast", sort of like a store that offers low prices. But from the elevation map, the hills would be gently rolling and not too severe, so I could see the basis for the advertisement. The main concern would be the temperature (72 deg F at the start) and the humidity. In fact the finisher's shirt from a previous year's race boasted of "Heat, Hills, and Humidity". We were advised to hydrate thoroughly before the race. In addition to following that advice in the day before the race, this time I wore a water belt with 16 ounces of cool water. I calculated that I would need to maintain a pace of 8:50 per mile to finish in 55 minutes. I would listen for alerts every 0.2 miles, aiming for an average of 1:46 per alert.
The race route began at the Chamblee MARTA station. We gathered on Peachtree Road (a street parallel to and a block south of Peachtree Boulevard). Although the announced starting time was 7:30 am, we were a bit delayed in starting. Even with the delay, this is always a fun time especially with a large field, absorbing the energy of a thousand other runners preparing for their individual races. I took a spot about 100 feet behind the starting line, but when one of the runners around me talked about a range of finishing times from 43 minutes to 50 minutes, I realized that I would need to be careful not to try to keep up with him at the start. I did decide not to move back, but stayed to the right side of the group. Finally the announcement was made that we would start in 60 seconds. I took a sip of water, poured a little on the back of my neck, and put the bottle away. The conversation died down as everyone got ready. Then the quiet of the morning was shattered by a shot, and we were off!
The starting line was relatively narrow and I even bumped into a fellow runner shortly before reaching the line, although no harm was done and we made our way over the starting line without incident, for me about 15 seconds after the official start. Once we crossed the line, everyone around me was running at a reasonable pace, even though the field was crowded. I was pretty careful to take it easy as I didn't want to be in a fall at the start, or to accidentally cause someone else to trip over me. It took only a few minutes to get to the main drag on Peachtree Boulevard, where we had three lanes reserved for our race. It's always an exciting feeling to make a turn and see a mass of hundreds of other runners, all focused on the same activity. When I think about it after the race, I realize that most of those runners finished ahead of me, but that thought never really comes up while I'm running, just the thrill of being in the mix. We reached the mile 1 marker at 8:50, exactly as I had hoped. From the published elevation map, I already knew that this was the highest point of the route. I was feeling strong and running well.
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| The race route. |
Shortly after the two mile mark, I heard a loud curse from a man ahead of me on the sidewalk, and realized that he was a runner who had just suffered an injury of some kind. He was walking, so for the moment he was still ambulatory, although I had a feeling that he must have realized that his injury was fairly serious and that he would not be able to finish. We continued past, with the hope that he could get any necessary assistance from some of the volunteers along the route. The campus of Oglethorpe University was a familiar landmark in the Peachtree training course, followed by the Town Center shopping area that was home base in our course, and also the site of the Brookhaven store for Big Peach. The Cinebistro movie theater is also in this development. When we reached the mile 3 marker, my time was 26:46, 9:08 for the third mile. I was disappointed to be slowing down a bit, but I was watching my heart rate monitor and knew from experience that I wouldn't be able to push at the end if I let my heart rate rise too high earlier in the race. But I was hoping that I could run without slowing down any further, otherwise I wouldn't be able to make up the time with a push at the end. I was still hoping for a finish in 55 minutes or slightly less. After passing the next water station, I took another sip from my own bottle, and poured a little more water on the back of my neck. That definitely helped.
The next part of the road was fairly well developed, as we approached the Brookhaven MARTA station between the intersections of Dresden Drive and North Druid Hills Road. There were several spectators along the road to cheer us on. But as we passed the station, I started to feel the hot sun on my back. Afterwards when I looked at the map, I realized that the road took a turn directly to the west at this stage, so it wasn't my imagination that I was heating up. I sipped more water and poured more on my neck whenever I needed it. We reached Club Drive at mile 4, at 36:11 and 9:25 for the fourth mile. I was definitely starting to feel tired, but tried to buoy my spirits by remembering the training runs in this part of town.
At this stage, we entered Fulton County and the city of Atlanta. Passing the last water station, I took more water from my bottle, and splashed a more generous portion on my neck. I was so happy that I had brought my own water bottle for this race. Even though it was probably an extra pound or two of weight when we started, on the back of a water belt it never felt like any load. But I was very careful when I reached back behind me to put the water bottle away, concerned that I might drop it. The sun was really starting to get to me. Then a runner with salt-and-pepper hair caught up with us, encouraging us and even goading us to pick up the pace! I wouldn't be surprised if he was a drill sergeant, past or present....but we picked up our pace just a bit with his motivation. Before long he had passed over the next hill and out of sight. In our last training run we had reached Peachtree Dunwoody Road, and I started looking for that landmark. It seemed like it took a very long time to get there, but finally we made it and I could see Phipps Plaza where I had lined up for the Peachtree Road Race two months ago. A bit further, the Buckhead skyscrapers were clearly in view, one of whose base was near the finish line. We reached the five-mile marker at 45:25, 9:14 for the fifth mile. I would really have to speed up if I was going to make a 55 minute finish.
Just past the marker, a runner was getting attention from a policewomen and a medic. The runner was sitting so hopefully it wasn't too bad, but that was the first time ever in a race that I had seen someone getting attention along the race route. I took a look at my own heart rate monitor and my pulse was well over 180 beats per minute. The elevation was increasing as we approached the overpass for GA-400. This had seemed so easy in mile 1 of the Peachtree Road Race, but I was having trouble today when this was mile 6. I made a decision that I had never made before in a race: I decided to take a walk break, and worked my way to the right side of the road to stay out of the way of runners. At that moment I was deeply appreciative of some advice I had read online a few weeks ago: there's no shame in walking. Runners passed me but I didn't care. I drank another sip of water and poured some over my head. It took a couple of minutes for my heart rate to drop to a safer level, but I'm fairly sure that I avoided a crisis by slowing to a walk. Today the problem wasn't thirst, it was the sun beating down on my back. After walking for a few blocks, I decided to try running again. I was pleased that I could get back up to my usual 6 mph speed without difficulty, and I felt much better than I had five minutes earlier. I even passed a few people. As we made the turn onto Piedmont Road, I knew that we had only about half a mile to the finish. This part of the road went gently downhill, but instead of lengthening my stride I decided to try to move my legs faster and take shorter steps. That actually helped a lot. I was almost comfortable again! I started looking for the six mile marker, resolving that I would try to break into a sprint at that point. Right before reaching the marker, another runner was down, and getting medical attention. I heard someone behind me say "Heat stroke", and that moment confirmed for me that I had made a very good decision to take the walk break a few minutes earlier. At the six-mile marker, my elapsed time was 54:35 and 9:10 for mile six, even with the 2-minute walk break. That was very interesting: even though I wasn't going to beat 55 minutes, the walk break really did not cost me any time, as I was able to make up the time with renewed energy when I began running again. And I was still moving forward while walking.
We rounded the corner onto the Buckhead loop. I could hear the announcer at the finish line, and broke into a sprint. In one short block we made the final turn into Buckhead Station. The runners around me were likewise going for their strongest possible finish, and while I don't think that I passed anyone at the end, I had a respectable finish. I was looking for Bonnie but couldn't find her in the crowd near the finish line - although she is responsible for the photos below, I just didn't see her. I was disappointed to read 56:41 on the clock as I crossed the finish line, but with the conditions it probably was not realistic for me to finish any faster. And given the problems that other runners had along the route, I was grateful to finish. This was probably the most difficult race that I had run. Amazingly, the temperature at the end was only 72 deg F, but humidity was 93%. And I had read somewhere that you should expect to slow down substantially when the temperature is above 60 degrees. Official time, 56:26, average pace 9:05 minutes per mile. Although it was only fourth-best out of my five 10K times, it was nearly a minute better than the Memorial Day 10K, and less than a minute slower than my best 10K time.
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| Thanks to Bonnie Youn for these photos! |
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| with Prof. Simon Blakey. Thanks to the organizers for the icy towel, which is that blue thing on the back of my neck. |
Goal: to run consistent splits, to have enough energy left for a strong finish. Not quite as consistent as I would like, but on the other hand the spread between the fastest and the slowest mile was less than 40 seconds. That is a substantial improvement over my other 10K races.
Goal: to improve on my personal record of 55:29. Not achieved, but under the conditions that was probably not a realistic goal for today, despite the advertised "super-fast" course.
Lessons learned:
1) Bringing my own water bottle was the best part of my planning for today.
2) Taking a walk break was the best spontaneous decision of my run today. I will work that into my training as I prepare for a 10-miler in late October, a. k. a. the Jeff Galloway run-walk method.
3) It's more important to finish healthy than to try to finish faster. I had never seen more than one runner in trouble before today's race, when there were at least three incidents with runners in front of me. I hope that they will be OK.
4) In the coming months I will repeat several races run over the past year, starting with the Winship 5K in late September, and the Eastside Beltline 10K in December. In those races my goal will be to improve on my 2013 times, rather than going for overall PRs.
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