2016 course time: 25:23
Last year I ran this nice fundraiser race, and was a little disappointed to post a 5K time over 25 minutes, which I attributed to the temperature. This was just 3 weeks after setting my 5K personal record of 23:52, which still stands, with regard to certified courses. I waited to sign up for this race until the last day for early bird registration, and decided that I wanted to try it again. This race features a short but relatively steep hill in the first mile, and most of the third mile is uphill, but now that I know the route, I thought that I might run it better and smarter this year.
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| Looking down from the top of the hill on Adams Street, taken about 15 minutes before the start of the race. |
I parked at the DeKalb County Courthouse around 7:15 am (free parking on weekends and evenings) and warmed up with about 1 mile jog to the Oakhurst Cooperative Preschool. After stretching a bit more at the school, I decided to explore the first part of the route, running to the top of the infamous Adams Street hill. It was just as steep as I remembered it, but I was glad to have that image in mind, and it helped to know ahead of time what pace I wanted to run up the hill without wearing myself out before the 1 mile marker.
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| The other runners were finishing pre-race stretches as I completed my warmup run. |
I made it back to the school just in time, as the warmup stretching exercises had concluded, and walked with the others to the starting line on Mead Road, in the same place as last year's race. After a few announcements, the starter stepped to the line, and immediately after "On your mark..." the pistol sounded. I settled into a comfortable pace around 7:20, just relaxing and letting my legs move me as smoothly as I could run. Turning right onto Adams Street, and immediately heading uphill, I took short steps, running on feel, just focusing on getting to the stop of the hill in two blocks without burning myself out. My heart rate monitor did not sound until I was at the very top of the hill, and went silent as soon as made a right turn onto Hill Street. In fact the elevation continued to rise slightly leading up to the mile 1 marker, but by staying relaxed, I felt comfortable and got ahead of a few runners in this section. I decided to forgo the water station at the mile 1 marker, 7:35 elapsed.
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| The route was identical to last year's race. |
The second mile along Oakview Road was a nice gentle downhill section, very easily run. I seemed to get ahead of a few of the people that were running with me, and was keeping up with a few runners immediately in front of me. I was running around a 7:30 min / mile pace, and amazingly the heart rate monitor was silent. After a while I checked the Garmin (two clicks to the heart rate) and I was holding steady at 170 beats / minute, with the alarm set to go off above 170. I just continued to run, feeling fairly good, enjoying the silence of the heart rate monitor. I was running the tangents and passed one fellow on a left turn, brushing the cones in the center of the road as I ran the shortest possible route. Near the end of the second mile, there was a slight increase in elevation, which was enough to trigger the alarm, but now I was close enough to the finish where I wanted to maintain speed, 7:34 for mile 2, just over 15 minutes elapsed.
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| I ran an 8:30 min / mile pace up the first steep hill. I slowed down a bit more going up a longer hill on Sisson Avenue (beginning of mile 3), but managed to speed up at the end of the race! |
The beginning of mile 3 was a mild but steady uphill over the course of a few blocks. The heart rate monitor was sounding, as I tried to keep up with the runners in front of me. I checked my pace in the first half of the third mile, frustrated to see 8:30 min / mile on the watch, but not feeling that I could go any faster. However, I felt that I might be closing on the runners in front of me ever so slightly. The road flattened out for a moment, I picked up a little speed, and finally caught up to the runners in front of me, now just a few feet behind.
Turning onto College Avenue, the road was definitely uphill heading to the East Lake MARTA station. But having run this section in the marathon last month, and on many occasions with the Big Peach Decatur group on Thursdays, I ran with confidence, passing the runners in the group that I had been following, and catching up with a young boy and an adult who were running together. I'm not sure if they were father - son, in fact I think that they probably were not, as they were not looking at each other as they ran. Near the MARTA station, near the top of the overpass, I passed the adult. The boy sensed that I was right behind him, and he put on a burst of speed! He momentarily pulled out a few feet ahead of me, but he was unable to maintain his sprint. I just kept on plugging away steadily and passed him at the very top.
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| I'm very proud of these splits! Four years ago when I began running, I couldn't imagine running this fast. |
Now it was slightly downhill or level for the rest of the race. I was determined to stay in front of the people that I had just passed, and took advantage of the favorable elevation to put on a kick of my own, accelerating from an 8:15 min / mile pace to 7:30 min / mile pace. The FINISH banner was in sight from a couple of blocks away, even before passing the mile 3 mark at just past 23 minutes, 8:12 for mile 3. I wondered if I could break 24 minutes? As I neared the finish line, I could read 23:45 on the clock. I continued to run as fast as I could, but let up just a bit when I accepted that I wouldn't finish before the clock ticked over to 24:00. However I was still motivated by the fear of being passed at the very end, and managed one last bit of acceleration to cross the finish line at 24:06 on the clock, 24:08 on my watch.
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| This is from the start of the 1 mile race. I barely outran the boy in the green shirt in the earlier 5K race! |
I kept walking for several minutes, completely winded and just trying to stay upright until my heart rate and breathing could slow down a bit. Although it wasn't a personal record finish, I was ecstatic that I had finished more than a minute faster than last year, under similar conditions (66 deg F in 2016, 70 deg F today), and that no one had passed me after the first mile or so. After I had recovered a bit, I decided to wait around for the awards ceremony. I felt that there weren't that many finishers in front of me, and was hoping that I might have placed in my age group. It took awhile for the results to come in, while children ran the 1 mile race followed by the tot trot in the parking lot.
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| As the race is a fundraiser for the Oakhurst Cooperative Preschool, the tot trot is the headline event, coming after the opening 5K and subsequent 1 mile races! |
Shortly after all of the children had completed the tot trot, it was time for awards. When the MC announced that only age group winners would receive awards (no second or third place awards), I figured that I was unlikely to win an award. The kid that I had barely beaten in the 5K won the 11 - 15 male age group. Then I learned that I had outrun the women's master's winner by about 10 seconds. When they called out the 50 - 59 male age group winner, "Frank McDonald", I was a bit surprised, but absolutely delighted. As I walked up to accept my award, the MC announced that I finished 15th overall, a big surprise! Last year I was fourth in age group, and 31st overall. As Captain Curt Walker says, it's about who shows up! But if I had run today's time in 2016, I would have placed 2nd in age group, and also in 15th place overall (thanks to Active.com, for permanently posting those results!).
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| The awards are mounted on a piece of wood: the front with the race logo, and the back with the winner's official result! |
It was very nice to win an award. But even if I had not won anything, I felt great about how well I had run today's race. Any disappointment about slowing down in the third mile completely disappeared when I checked the elevation stats at home, and saw the net elevation increase of 81 feet in the third mile. In fact the finish line in this race was 18 feet above the elevation of the starting line.
Today's race was my fifth 5K of 2017. Each of those races has been completed in less than 25 minutes! Next Saturday, I'm running Eric's Fit Lab Run Walk Crawl 10K, through the hills of Tucker.
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