December 1, 2018: The Eastside Beltline 10K

My first 10K race was the Eastside Beltline, in December 2013, and I've run it without fail each year since.  Last year I ran my best time on the course, finishing in 51:09 (although the course was about 0.1 mile short) and notched a few new personal bests in the coming weeks, including a half-marathon PR two weeks later, and a 5K PR on January 1.  And then I injured myself running a 12K in less than 60 minutes on a hilly course in February of this year, and exacerbated the injury by foolishly completing a marathon in March.  

I've spent the last 8 months recovering and gradually regaining endurance to successfully run the New York City Marathon four weeks ago.  Finally I feel mostly recovered in the legs, but I don't really know where I stand with regard to conditioning, since I haven't tried to run at my fastest pace for any distance longer than a mile.  To maintain my streak in the Eastside Beltline race, and to continue supporting the Beltline project, I decided earlier this week to register for this year's race.  But it's not always a straightforward decision: mile 3 of this race is always held on an unimproved section of the Beltline, which under the best of conditions has all of the hazards of trail running, and when wet is a dangerous slough of muddy puddles and slippery gravel.  

After I registered on Monday evening, the weather forecast began to worsen.  By yesterday morning, the chance of rain was predicted at 90% for each hour between 8 am and 12 pm.  And when I awoke this morning, it had rained for most of the night and the prediction was 100% rain with a chance of thundershowers later in the morning.  Originally I had planned to run 12 miles today, parking at Piedmont Park 3 miles away from the start-finish area.  But with torrential rain at the house when I left shortly after 8 am, I knew that I could find street parking near the start-finish area, and other than a little warmup ahead of time, decided not to run much more than the 10K.  I deliberately left my iPhone hidden in the car, as I didn't want to risk damaging the phone, so the few photos in this blog post were available from the race organizers. 

Fortunately the intensity of the rain diminished to a drizzle as I arrived.  I was lucky enough to find a parallel parking spot on Edgewood Road just two blocks from the start-finish area.  I jogged easily to the Stoveworks - Krog Street Market complex, had plenty of time for dynamic stretching, a little pre-race socializing, and a cappuccino bracketed by two porte-potty stops.  Five minutes before the start, the rain began to increase again, but I walked to the starting area per the race organizers instructions, among one of the first few dozen runners to line up.  Only then did I get drenched, but to the larger group of people huddled under the awnings adjacent to the starting area, I figured, what does it matter, when you're all going to get completely soaked within a minute or two. 

A few seconds into the race

We began exactly at 9:30 am, I crossed the starting mat about 20 seconds after the official start, and made my way in a large mass of runners slowly heading north on Krog Street.  Then the people in front of me came to a dead stop: there was a large water puddle at the intersection with Irwin Street.  What the heck, my feet were already wet, and the puddle wasn't all that deep, so I just ran straight through, made two turns, and landed on the Beltline in a decent position with regard to the center of the way and with a group moving at the "right" pace, about a 9 min / mile pace.  To my surprise, there were some big puddles in sections of the Beltline, so anyone who had kept their feet dry in the first few hundred yards was surely running in wet socks by the end of the first mile.   

Given the bad weather, my plan was simply to run easily on the downhill part of the Beltline, settling in just under a 9 min / mile pace for the first 2 miles, just get through the treacherous third mile without injury, and once I had returned to the sidewalk at the north end of Piedmont Park, see what I could manage with a faster pace in the final 5K or so.  I covered mile 1 in 8:35.  Passing under the Highland Avenue bridge, a torrent of water pouring through a hole in the street hit me in the face and head, as I couldn't quite get out of the way due to all of the people around me.  Fortunately I was wearing a cap, which blocked most of the water.  And as we began to spread out along the course, I finished mile 2 in 8:16, seemingly without that much effort.  Now to mile 3, crossing Monroe Avenue and onto the gravel parking lot behind Park Tavern, and then onto the unimproved Beltline trail.  It was much worse than I had remembered.  In several places, deep puddles or long muddy stretches meant that we jogged single file along the grassy edge.  A relatively young and slender-looking man was walking back toward us with a limp: he was facing a long and painful walk back to the start-finish area, presuming that he didn't call a Lyft or ask organizers for assistance.  As we approached the north end of this stretch, I could hear the boiling cascade of water pouring down a spillage stream separating the Beltline from the main section of Piedmont Park.  The memory of Niagara Falls came to mind.  Up and over a wooden bridge and finally on to pavement at Winchester Street, to head into the park proper.  

I had not seen any mile markers along the way, but my watch indicated 9:06 for the third mile and 26 minutes total elapsed, and I estimated that I reached the 5K point at about 27 minutes even.  Now to try to speed up a little.  Mile 4 through Piedmont Park itself was a series of gentle rollers, and near the south end of the park I could see a nice downhill into the meadow.  I thought I could pick up a few seconds on the last downhill section of this race, but I shouldn't have been surprised to see a large puddle at the bottom of the hill.  I followed the path of most of the other runners on the grass parallel to the submerged pathway, which meant that we were churning through mud instead.  I'm glad that I wore my third-newest shoes, which were actually about six months old, in case they ended up ruined by the water and mud.  I finished mile 4 in 8:38, 34:35 elapsed, which I thought was pretty good for the conditions.   

Back onto the Beltline, I aimed to pick up some speed, even though I knew from experience that it would be uphill for the rest of the race.  I had mostly passed people through the park, but began to slow as I grew tired on the Beltline, before I had reached Ponce City Market.  A women wearing a white and grey hoodie passed me at that stage, followed shortly thereafter by a man with a blue-grey hoodie.  Then a woman with a red hoodie started to pass me.  Maybe I should have worn a hoodie myself.  At that moment I found a higher gear and got back in front of her, and proceeded to pass a few more people approaching the North Avenue overpass.  But now I felt a stitch on my lower right side.  Had eaten too much breakfast?  My felt a little queasy.  Don't throw up, I thought to myself, as I visualized leaning over the railing that I would reach at the next overpass at Ralph McGill Avenue.  Instead, I slowed down, hoping that none of the people that I had just passed would overtake me, as my watch signaled that I completed mile 5 in 8:54, 43:30 elapsed.  The woman in the red hoodie did catch up at that point.  

I reached the Ralph McGill overpass, and my stomach felt better.  I felt funny passing the woman in the red hoodie while simultaneously holding and massaging the stitch in my right side.  My legs didn't hurt, especially not the Achilles tendon or the knee that had become sore in the middle of the New York City Marathon, but I struggled with fatigue, as my heart had not been tested at this speed for so long for many months.  C'mon Frank, I said to myself, you just ran the Freaking New York City Marathon, you can do better in this little ol' 10K, especially with less than a mile to go.  And I picked up a little surge at that moment.  

Then I began to hurt again as I crossed under Highland Avenue.  At least I missed getting hit by the stream of water still falling from the underside of the bridge.  The woman with the red hoodie caught up to me again, but I accelerated to keep her from getting ahead of me - until a woman wearing a maroon long-sleeved shirt - not a hoodie - passed me moving quickly.  I tried to speed up, and kept in front of red hoodie, but maroon shirt, and the other two hoodie runners were increasing their gaps in front of me.  Then the intersection with Irwin Street came into view.  I knew that the end was near, especially when red hoodie passed me, this time for good as she accelerated toward the finish line.  

There were some surges in the last few miles,
but I ended running no better than an even-split race.

Mile 6 alert sounded in 8:54, 52:25 elapsed, right before I crossed Irwin Street, with the intersection protected by a single policeman.  As soon as I crossed, I heard the sound of cars passing through the intersection: hmm, there must have been a sizable gap just behind me.  Even though I could see the finish line banner up ahead, I was just about completely out of fuel.  Don't walk, Frank, keep running, you're almost there!  I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was behind me, and didn't see anyone at all.  A moment later I looked again, the nearest runner was far behind me, maybe a 100 feet or more.  Knowing that I wouldn't get passed by anyone else, and realizing that I probably couldn't catch up to anyone behind me, I started to slow down, then put on one final surge to clear the last 100 feet of the race route.  

Turns out, the top and bottom photos show that
other runners were not that far behind me! 

53:39 on my watch.  To my surprise, not only had I not seen a single mile marker along the route, there was no clock at the finish!  And I had to stop running abruptly upon crossing the finish line, to stand in line to have my bib scanned, and then to tear off a bottom strip from the bib which had been written last night by a volunteer at bib pickup. I congratulated the woman in the red hoodie as we walked up to a table to collect a banana and Powerade.  "I had six miles in me today, but not 6.2," I said.  

(When my official time was originally posted, at 53:59, I wrote to the race organizer to ask them to check the raw data.  Lowell Starr responded within a few days: my chip had not recorded at the start, probably due to the crowd, but he confirmed the start time from their photo.  The finish line did record, and the bib collection process was simply a backup in case the finish line sensors were not working.  Lowell posted my time as 53:37, which matched my watch to the extent that I typically start the watch a second or so before crossing the start line, and likewise I stop the watch a second or so after crossing the finish line.  Thanks to Lowell for taking care of this!)

It's the best 10K race that I've run this year, and the fastest that I've run for a 10K distance since the 12K race in mid-February, 9-1/2 months ago, so I shouldn't be unhappy, even if my watch measured only 6.14 miles for the route.