April 15, 2023: The Northside Beltline 5K

I've been one of the "faces of the race" in this year's promotional photo,
from the 2022 Northside Beltline 3K

I told Coach Carl that I would try for a sub-26 minute race this weekend, and so he gave me a workout on Tuesday evening, with two 800-meter repeats at 8:20 min / mile pace. That gave me a good sense how a 26 minute 5K pace would feel, and was manageable, so I went into today's race with some optimism. Unfortunately I didn't feel great while I was warming up covering about 2.5 miles of the course (where I took most of today's photos) but I thought that a subsequent porta-potty stop should help. 

From the colors (red is fast, blue is slow),
you can probably already tell how this race went for me. 

Somehow I was assigned to wave A for today's race! I took a position in the back of the wave, just in front of wave B. Nick Varvel started with me, after saying he was going to take it easy. My race plan for today was to run the level first mile in 8:20. Hopefully I could bank enough energy to get over the big hill on Northside Drive, then I would try to make up the time downhill and on the level third mile. 

Susie Kim in the front row,
on her way to winning her age group over the next half-hour! 

Ronnel Blackmon, my favorite Atlanta Track Club MC, started us off with his usual enthusiasm, albeit teasing the A-wave runners for being so serious! "Go!Go!Go!" shouted Ronnel as I crossed the timing mat. A couple of quick turns had us on the 2-mile path around the Bobby Jones Golf Course.

Flat route in miles 1 and 3.
Someone ought to lance that big carbuncle in mile 2. 

The first mile followed the route of last year's 3K, crossing Peachtree Creek between the golf course and the neighborhood to the north. After a couple of minutes, I checked my watch, which showed 8:25 min / mile. Perfect! The pace per mile setting on my watch rounds off to the nearest 5 seconds, so it means that I'm somewhere in the 8:20 - 8:25 range. I had the sense from a quick glance that no one was immediately behind me. Good, that means that I'm not starting too quickly. I passed a couple of people as we got closer to Northside Drive, but my watch indicated that I was steady at 8:25 so they must have been slowing down. 

PATH trail over Peachtree Creek parallel to Northside Drive.
Mile 1 marker is 100 feet ahead.

Pre-dawn looking over the Bobby Jones golf course

And now the rising sun just over the treeline,
with midtown Atlanta towers in the background.

I made the turn onto Northside Drive, uphill over the bridge, and past the mile 1 marker. 8:22 minutes elapsed, perfect! I took a couple of glances over the golf course to my left, then around 9 minutes in, time to start hill climbing! Time for the mantra, "I love hills! I love hills! I love hills!" In my mind that sounded ridiculous, but I made it up the hill without taking a walk break, so that definitely worked. Chris Carino was on his medium-long run in the neighborhood, and was encouraging me as I climbed the hill. 

This is what the big hill looked like from the bottom. 

Once we had reached the top, at the entrance to the golf club, we now had a steep downhill. I had slowed to 9:30 min / mile pace going uphill, and wanted to use the gravity assist to regain some of the time lost earlier in mile 2. 

at the Bobby Jones Golf Course entrance.
Bobby Jones was a famous amateur golfer in the 1920's,
and attended Emory Law School during that time.  

The Bitsy Grant Tennis Center sits on a corner adjacent to the golf course. 

Bryan "Bitsy" Grant was an amateur tennis star in the 1930's.

I caught up to and passed several people in this stretch, including Luke Butler. Then we made a quick left turn onto the PATH trail adjacent to the Bitsy Grant Tennis Center. The PATH continued mostly downhill, and I maintained speed until passing over a bridge over a creek, turning right for an out-and-back on the actual Northside Beltline Trail, along Tanyard Creek. I had managed to lower the pace in mile 2 to reach 8:43 (17:05 elapsed), but unfortunately I could tell that I was slowing down. My heartrate had been at threshold level ever since I started up the mile early in mile 2. People were passing me, including some of the people that I had passed in the previous 10 minutes - and then a couple of wave B runners were dashing past me. 

Another bridge for the PATH trail near the Bitsy Grant Tennis Center

I ran a good 2-mile race. 

Approaching the Collier Road bridge over the PATH trail, 
adjacent to Tanyard Creek.

I struggled from the Collier Road bridge to the turnaround at around 2.3 miles. I was definitely in "oxygen debt" and decided that I would soon take a walk break as soon as I could find a safe place along the narrow trail, given the amount of traffic in both directions. As soon as I had cleared the cones from the turnaround, I held up my hand and pulled off to the side to walk, counting to 30 seconds. Luke Butler passed me, calling some encouragement to get me to running again. I slowly resumed running, but it wasn't until I was back on the north side of the Collier Road bridge that I began to speed up to 9 minute / mile pace. Quite a few wave B runners were heading south, just 0.2 - 0.3 miles behind me, including a man in a banana suit. At least I didn't think that I would get passed by the banana. 

Turning right to return onto the PATH around the golf course, I tried to increase me speed, aware that we were on level land. People kept passing me. I checked my watch at 25 minutes, 2.85 miles. Ohhhh, I'm not going to finish a quarter-mile in 1 minute. But I began to speed up, knowing the exact distance remaining. I passed the mile 3 marker in 9:10, 26:15 elapsed although I didn't realize my time at that moment. I kicked a little harder to keep up with the other strong finishers, as we navigated a tricky transition from the PATH onto a street, especially coming three abreast, while also merging with the 3K finishers. Thanks to Rich Kenah for stationing himself at the most hazardous obstacle, verbaling cautioning us. Fortunately the broken curb was painted bright orange, and I managed to get onto the street without incident. 

Surely the finish line was just around the corner. Ronnel was cheering us in, but the finish line was a bit further away than I expected. I saw 26:53 on my watch, tried to kick into gear to cross the timing mat within 7 seconds. As soon as I crossed, I stopped my watch, at 27:03 elapsed. 

Official results were published later in the evening, and my official chip time of 27:00 flat was consistent with my expectation that I started my watch a second or two before crossing the timing mat. What surprised me was that my gender wasn't listed. I remembering having trouble with that during registration although I thought that I had fixed it. Not that I'm particularly concerned about that. 

217th out of 795 finishers

But then I took a look at the Men's 60 - 64 age group --- and if I had registered myself properly, I would have been awarded 3rd place age group! Oh well, it's not like I was expecting to place, given that I missed my modest goal by a full minute. The take-home lesson is that I should check my future registrations with Atlanta Track Club races for my classification. However, I think it was just for this race registration that I had the problem. 

Where's 60-year-old Frank and "his" 27:00 minute finish?

How "not" to run a 5K. Some of the most 5K uneven racing that I've done!
And that walk break at 20 minutes elapsed looks longer than 30 seconds....