2020 is the Year of the Rat. And what a ratty year it's been.
January: That was a good month. We returned from a nice trip to the Philippines centered on the 100th anniversary of Bonnie's school where she grew up in Manila, capped off with a nice day walking around New York City before returning to Atlanta, in time for her 50th birthday party. At the end of the month, Bonnie received the Han C. Choi Mentor Award for her service to the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association (GAPABA) at the Lunar New Year Banquet. She spoke about some of the "positive" qualities of the rat, including "immune, resilient" "and how many billions of lab rats have been sacrified to discover miraculous cures." and went on to suggest the negative connotations of "I smell a rat! Snitches!!" could be turned to a more positive word: "Whistleblower!!" "A whistleblower is a person who brings justice, uncovering evil, someone who has the courage to stand up to bullies, and shine a light on darkness.
So this is really the year of the whistleblower!"
February: Despite Bonnie's attempt to start the Lunar New Year on a bright note, the year soon took a terrible turn. On February 13, our family suffered the tragic death of Bonnie's cousin, Mina Chung. We gathered at Mina's parents' hometown in Westchester County, New York for a small family funeral on February 29. Fortunately none of us in attendance were infected with COVID-19, otherwise that could have been a super-spreader event, given how much we cried on each other that day. It's all the more frightening because Westchester County was becoming one of the epicenters for the COVID-19 outbreak around that time, only we didn't know that until a couple of weeks later. At that time, I was still in denial about the potential seriousness of this disease.
March: My highlight accomplishment of setting a personal record in the marathon on March 1 was largely overshadowed by the increasingly dire news of the spread of COVID-19. I shut down my research laboratory on March 16, moving the essential materials for my teaching and writing activities to my home office for the remainder of the spring semester. March was a scary month.
The year of April: Tragedy spread across the country. The virus seemed so distant as we watched what China and then Italy were suffering, but struck the United States with a vengeance. The number of cases and deaths rocketed exponentially upwards, to exceed 60,000 lost in the United States by the end of April. As much as I had hated to shut down the lab in mid-March, it was soon apparent that Emory had acted in the nick of time, limiting the continued transmission of this deadly disease as we sheltered at home. On the last day of April, the Atlanta Track Club announced that the Peachtree Road Race would be delayed until Thanksgiving day, November 26. There was a lot of anger expressed about that move on Facebook. But to be realistic, the Atlanta Track Club had no good options. This won't be over by July 4. I am skeptical that it will be safe to run a large race in November, but I'm willing to wait and see how things turn out in the fall.
May: The state of Georgia officially reopened last week. However, most people are still sheltering, wearing masks when running essential errands such grocery shopping, and maintaining social distance. The businesses that have reopened have done so very cautiously, and with many measures to protect employees and customers. I myself will wait a few more weeks to see how things go before going out for a haircut. From certain angles, I'm beginning to look a little like Larry from the Three Stooges.
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| A couple more months of this, then I can audition for the next Three Stooges movie. |
Coach Carl arranged a virtual 5K for the runners in the Tuesday evening group training. He came up with the clever acronym, R.A.T. race for "Running Alone Together", and even produced bibs for each participant, with our lucky number. When Bonnie saw my bib, she reminded me that this is the Year of the Rat.
After running hard last weekend for 4 miles, I wasn't too interested in pushing myself in today's 5K. In addition, the training plan had me down for 10 miles with easy effort. To ensure that I finished the entire workout, I woke up early and set out shortly after 6:30 am, to run at least 10K, including the 3.11 mile route that I had selected for today's 5K race. It was a beautiful morning to run, around 50 deg F at sunrise. I was seranaded by the birds from the beginning to the end of my run. I returned to the house around 7:35 am, drank a glass of water, ate a banana and orange to replenish glycogen, and headed back out to the adjacent neighborhood where I would run the race. For the past month, I've done my Monday morning runs in this neighborhood. There are plenty of rolling hills, but nothing as steep as the trails at Lucky Shoals Park. Best of all, there is hardly any automobile traffic on these streets. The only downside is that I have to run about 0.3 miles from my own neighborhood along Old Norcross Road, which has no sidewalks, and cars routinely exceed the 35 mile per hour speed limit on this road. Fortunately there is room to jump off of the road onto the grass in both directions whenever a car is in the incoming lane.
At 8:00 am sharp, I lined up on Lake Ivanhoe Drive. I knew from my previous runs that I would finish before reaching the busy intersection with Old Norcross Road, as long as I didn't start too far from the main road. Looking ahead, I nodded approvingly to myself for the downhill start. Of course I knew that I would have to run back up that hill near the end of the 5K distance, but I was ready for that. Both of my regular readers know my mantra, "I love hills!"
"Ready, set, go!" and I set off down the street. After running the first 10K just under a 10 minute / mile pace, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was running at an 8:30 minute / mile pace. Surely I could hold onto that pace for 5K. In fact I picked up some speed as I continued running downhill toward Lake Ivanhoe itself, at the center of this neighborhood, just south of the Heritage Golf Course. I turned onto Templar Knight Drive, trying to maintain a steady pace. When I checked afterwards, it looked like I was continually slowing down and then speeding up. Either I need a better watch, or I have discovered something that I should work on in training.
It's often said that "5Ks hurt!" and that is definitely true. But they also pass by quickly, especially if the watch is set to alert every kilometer. Hurray for the metric system! As I turned left on the Locksley Road, I was greeted by a steady uphill route, but also with the 1 km alert, 5:01 minutes! I didn't expect that. Could I keep going at this pace for a 25 minute finish? The right turn onto Goodfellows Road immediately put that goal into doubt. Calm down, I said, I'm not really racing this. Just get to the top of the hill, and there, that feels better. Cruising down Goodfellows Road, I began to regain some speed, but then a modest little uphill section brought me back to reality. At the top of the hill, Goodfellows turned left and acquired a new name, Smithsonia Drive. I don't know how Smithsonia fits into Walter Scott's Ivanhoe mythology, but this part of the road has a 55 foot drop to Lucky Shoals creek near its source at Cofer Lake, just a few blocks to the south. The 2 km alert sounded as I began to pick up some speed running downhill. 5:16 for kilometer 2, 10:17 elapsed. As I crossed the creek, I took a quick look at my watch and saw 4:xx minute / kilometer. But that didn't last as I started heading up the other side of the hill, on a 40 foot climb. This is where my pace was briefly slower than 10 min / mile. To minimize my time on Chamblee-Tucker Road, I turned one block early onto Smithsonia Way, regaining a decent pace until I encountered the next little hill at the intersection with Smithsonia Court. I used to get terribly confused by all of these streets with the same name when I had to drive through here several years ago when Old Norcross Road was closed for road repair.
As I approached Chamblee-Tucker Road, I saw my first social distancing challenge ahead: a woman power-walking through the intersection, heading north, the same direction that I was planning to run. I thought briefly about just turning around and retracing my route, as I was surely more than halfway through the 5K distance. But as I reached Chamblee-Tucker Road, I saw that the next car was still a couple of blocks away, and determined that I could speed past the woman while running on the side of the road. I sped up to my fastest speed of the race, 8.3 mph according to Garmin, probably with a little downhill assist, and got back onto the sidewalk before the automobile had caught up with me. In the midst of that drama, the 3 km alert sounded, 5:23 for kilometer 3, 15:40 elapsed.
If I remembered correctly, my route was net downhill from here to the finish, but by how much? (20 feet, I discovered as I wrote this sentence.) I turned right onto Webb Road, happy to get back onto a quiet street and with the additional benefit of heading downhill, toward the other side of Lake Ivanhoe. Another right onto Rothenwood Drive, more gentle downhill running, although I was not running all that fast at this point. Then there was a 20 foot hill that someone had put in the middle of the neighborhood. Time for the mantra, "I love hills!" Up and over, as the 4 km alert sounded, 5:27 for kilometer 4, 21:07 elapsed. That came a little sooner than expected!
Turning left to cross Lucky Shoals Creek once more, then left as Rothenwood Drive changed name to Templar Knight Drive. Uphill. I knew this when I set up the route, but this last kilometer was going to be tough. Passing Locksley Road, I encountered my second social distancing obstacle. A couple of residents walking their dogs were talking. I was hoping that they would move to the same side of the street, but - they were obviously not residing in the same home, so instead they increased their social distance, leaving the middle of the road for me to pass through. Fortunately the road was wide enough so that I was much more than six feet away from either person as I passed through. And without any automobile traffic to contend with, I was perfectly safe running down the middle of the street. Past Lady Rowena Court, looking ahead to the last turn onto Lake Ivanhoe Drive, I was faced with a 25 foot hill. C'mon Frank, you love hills! Channeling the strides that I did on Thursday evening, having run each one of them uphill, I went into the same motion, and started counting to 15 seconds, but couldn't maintain that speed. My watch had ticked past 25 minutes elapsed, I still had a minute or more to run to reach the 5K mark. At this point, I gave in to fatigue for a moment. It didn't matter, this was just a virtual race, I had run more than 6 miles this morning before even starting the 5K. Then I shook off the negativity as I crested the hill, put on one last burst of speed until I heard a quiet little beep marking the 5 kilometer mark, 5:18 for kilometer 5, 26:25 elapsed. I slowed down, stopped the watch (26:29 for 5.02 km), and started walking slowly to recover my breath.
That was an 8:30 minute / mile pace, somewhat slower than what I ran covering 4.00 miles last Saturday. On the other hand, I would not have run 6.3 miles to warm up if I had cared about notching my best time in this 5K virtual race. I checked Strava to see who else had finished, saw that Joey Maxwell had already congratulated me - which meant that he had finished well ahead of me - with an impressive 19:14. Turns out that Allan Tetley ran a 19:05, Katie Bennett 19:18, Kacy Seynders 21:54, and Robin Mitchell 23:56. Several of these speedsters had qualified for the Boston Marathon and were well into their race preparations before the marathon was postponed until the fall. There are a lot of fast runners in Coach Carl's training group!
I picked up the last 0.7 miles of my 10.1 mile workout on the cooldown run home. Unfortunately I tuned in late to the post-race Zoom call, as it was more important to me to take a quick shower and to make a protein-rich second breakfast than it was to log in precisely at 9:00 am, but I joined for the last few minutes.
After running hard last weekend for 4 miles, I wasn't too interested in pushing myself in today's 5K. In addition, the training plan had me down for 10 miles with easy effort. To ensure that I finished the entire workout, I woke up early and set out shortly after 6:30 am, to run at least 10K, including the 3.11 mile route that I had selected for today's 5K race. It was a beautiful morning to run, around 50 deg F at sunrise. I was seranaded by the birds from the beginning to the end of my run. I returned to the house around 7:35 am, drank a glass of water, ate a banana and orange to replenish glycogen, and headed back out to the adjacent neighborhood where I would run the race. For the past month, I've done my Monday morning runs in this neighborhood. There are plenty of rolling hills, but nothing as steep as the trails at Lucky Shoals Park. Best of all, there is hardly any automobile traffic on these streets. The only downside is that I have to run about 0.3 miles from my own neighborhood along Old Norcross Road, which has no sidewalks, and cars routinely exceed the 35 mile per hour speed limit on this road. Fortunately there is room to jump off of the road onto the grass in both directions whenever a car is in the incoming lane.
At 8:00 am sharp, I lined up on Lake Ivanhoe Drive. I knew from my previous runs that I would finish before reaching the busy intersection with Old Norcross Road, as long as I didn't start too far from the main road. Looking ahead, I nodded approvingly to myself for the downhill start. Of course I knew that I would have to run back up that hill near the end of the 5K distance, but I was ready for that. Both of my regular readers know my mantra, "I love hills!"
"Ready, set, go!" and I set off down the street. After running the first 10K just under a 10 minute / mile pace, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was running at an 8:30 minute / mile pace. Surely I could hold onto that pace for 5K. In fact I picked up some speed as I continued running downhill toward Lake Ivanhoe itself, at the center of this neighborhood, just south of the Heritage Golf Course. I turned onto Templar Knight Drive, trying to maintain a steady pace. When I checked afterwards, it looked like I was continually slowing down and then speeding up. Either I need a better watch, or I have discovered something that I should work on in training.
 |
| This looks like really irregular pacing, and not just in response to the elevation changes. |
As I approached Chamblee-Tucker Road, I saw my first social distancing challenge ahead: a woman power-walking through the intersection, heading north, the same direction that I was planning to run. I thought briefly about just turning around and retracing my route, as I was surely more than halfway through the 5K distance. But as I reached Chamblee-Tucker Road, I saw that the next car was still a couple of blocks away, and determined that I could speed past the woman while running on the side of the road. I sped up to my fastest speed of the race, 8.3 mph according to Garmin, probably with a little downhill assist, and got back onto the sidewalk before the automobile had caught up with me. In the midst of that drama, the 3 km alert sounded, 5:23 for kilometer 3, 15:40 elapsed.
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| Gone, but not forgotten. It's been nearly three years since Janet Pickney was killed on Chamblee-Tucker Road during her morning run, about 1 mile south of here. |
Turning left to cross Lucky Shoals Creek once more, then left as Rothenwood Drive changed name to Templar Knight Drive. Uphill. I knew this when I set up the route, but this last kilometer was going to be tough. Passing Locksley Road, I encountered my second social distancing obstacle. A couple of residents walking their dogs were talking. I was hoping that they would move to the same side of the street, but - they were obviously not residing in the same home, so instead they increased their social distance, leaving the middle of the road for me to pass through. Fortunately the road was wide enough so that I was much more than six feet away from either person as I passed through. And without any automobile traffic to contend with, I was perfectly safe running down the middle of the street. Past Lady Rowena Court, looking ahead to the last turn onto Lake Ivanhoe Drive, I was faced with a 25 foot hill. C'mon Frank, you love hills! Channeling the strides that I did on Thursday evening, having run each one of them uphill, I went into the same motion, and started counting to 15 seconds, but couldn't maintain that speed. My watch had ticked past 25 minutes elapsed, I still had a minute or more to run to reach the 5K mark. At this point, I gave in to fatigue for a moment. It didn't matter, this was just a virtual race, I had run more than 6 miles this morning before even starting the 5K. Then I shook off the negativity as I crested the hill, put on one last burst of speed until I heard a quiet little beep marking the 5 kilometer mark, 5:18 for kilometer 5, 26:25 elapsed. I slowed down, stopped the watch (26:29 for 5.02 km), and started walking slowly to recover my breath.
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| The closest intersection to my finish line |
I picked up the last 0.7 miles of my 10.1 mile workout on the cooldown run home. Unfortunately I tuned in late to the post-race Zoom call, as it was more important to me to take a quick shower and to make a protein-rich second breakfast than it was to log in precisely at 9:00 am, but I joined for the last few minutes.
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| Still smiling after completing 10.1 miles total workout! |
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