April 25, 2015: The Big Peach 5K Run for Blood Cancer

Goals: Experimenting with a run/walk strategy in a 5K race; supporting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society 

In the early 2000's, my father was diagnosed with lymphoma.  Fortunately his case was discovered and accurately diagnosed before he had any noticeable symptoms.  He went to the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, had excellent results with what was then a relatively new immunotherapy regimen, and the tumor was no longer detectable after the second treatment.  He tolerated the immunotherapy quite well, and I recall that he appreciated the support of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS).  When I learned last year that the LLS had just held their annual spring race in Atlanta, I resolved to add that race to my schedule for 2015.  

My running has been going well, and I've increased the frequency of training since finishing the Publix Georgia Half Marathon a month ago, aiming to improve my endurance and conditioning so that I might break the 2 hour mark in a future half-marathon.  The 5K doesn't exactly fit into the training schedule, but I figure that it's a good opportunity for a tempo workout, or to experiment with some running strategies.  The run-walk strategy was successful in last weekend's 10K, so I wanted to test the strategy in a shorter race. 

Last night, a box of Beet It (Beet Juice concentrate) arrived, which I had ordered on the recommendation of a friend who read last weekend's blog entry.  Our friend, Tara, has run several marathons under 4 hours, so she definitely knows what she's talking about.  

Looking for every possible advantage

The weather forecast for the day was quite ominous, with rain and even a chance of thunderstorms or more severe weather.  It began raining around 6 am, and steadily increased in intensity.  I arrived at the race site shortly after 6:30 am.  I cracked open the beet juice shot, and drank down the entire 2.4 ounces in one gulp, washing it down with a sip of water.  It didn't taste too bad, certainly not as foul as real beet juice.  After checking outside and seeing that it was raining fairly hard, I did my warmup in the underground parking garage.  At 7:25 am, I emerged from the dry garage to see most of the runners huddling under the eaves of the shops near the start line, with just a few runners staking out positions at the starting line.  Unfortunately the purpose of the fundraiser and raising awareness of the work of LLS would be largely lost this morning due to the bad weather, but the announcer and organizers were trying to make the best of it.  After the singing of the National Anthem, the runners emerged from cover and gathered behind the starting line.  There were several flashes in front of us, which at first I feared was lightning, then I realized it was flash photography given the low light conditions.  The announcer gave the signal to "Get set" and then the shot from the starting gun rang out, quite loudly!  

The start was quite crowded but the pack was moving at a fairly good pace, perhaps not as fast as I could have run, but probably the right speed to keep me from going out too fast.  We first ran around the outskirts of the Town Brookhaven shopping area, then onto Peachtree Road heading south toward Atlanta.  Now we had more room to run, and I was able to build up some speed, only to step into a pothole that was difficult to see from all of the rain water.  I felt a twinge but managed to skip out of it without seeming to twist it.  I thought of the account of Dick Beardsley in the 1982 Boston Marathon, having recently read "Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar, Dick Beardsley, and America's Greatest Marathon" by John Brant.  Beardsley developed a leg cramp late in the race, which caused him to fall off of the lead.  A moment later, he accidentally stepped in a pothole, but instead of disaster, the muscle popped with the twisting action, the cramp disappeared, and Beardsley was able to sprint to the end of the marathon, nearly catching Alberto Salazar at the finish line.  

The shirt that I wore today, albeit completely soaked after the race

In our more modest race, we turned into the Brookhaven neighborhood at Osborne Road, and were rewarded with a nice, long, gradual downhill run.  Thank goodness I didn't have any pain from the pothole encounter, and I was able to speed up in this section.  I could hardly hear alerts from my phone due to the sounds of rain, but checking the watch on my heart rate monitor gave me a fairly good idea of my progress.  We reached mile 1 at 8:10 minutes, which I thought was pretty good under the conditions.  Turning onto Fuller Road, I resolved to take a short walk break going uphill to the intersection with Mabry Road.  In the longer races where most people are pacing themselves to make it 6.2 or 10 or 13.1 miles, I don't feel that I'm losing much ground by walking for a moment, but today it seemed that the 5K runners were moving past fairly quickly.  I probably walked for only about 20 seconds before I began running again.  Although my heart rate didn't seem to drop, my legs did feel fresher due to the change of pace, so that was good.  I made good progress heading south on Mabry.  There was a water station manned by one volunteer in raincoat and holding an umbrella, but s/he didn't have many takers.  It was difficult to feel thirsty when water was running down my face, despite some protection from a cap. Then we reached the low point in the road, where there was a streamlet of water crossing the road.  It was probably no more than an inch or two deep, but I started thinking about the sponsor, Big Peach Running Company and how many more $100 pairs of shoes they could sell, because it can't be good for running shoes to get so incredibly wet...  

I took another short walk break midway up the hill from the streamlet, then got back to speed fairly quickly.  It was nice to see the mile-2 marker at about 17:50 elapsed time (8:40 for mile 2), and while I had slowed down a bit, I was still moving faster than a 9-minute per mile pace.  At this point I started noticing just how heavy my shirt had become with all of the rain water that it had absorbed.  I had worn a polyester shirt for the race, and was surprised at how much water it could hold.  I checked the label after the race, and it read "100% polyester", but I think that it must have been blended with cotton.  Having covered polyester chemistry in my class on Thursday, I knew that there aren't enough of the type of functional groups that will absorb water in polyester.  In contrast, cotton fibers are mostly made out of cellulose, which forms a large number of hydrogen bonds with many molecules of water.  

You can say it again and again and again, but I still don't believe it.

I knew from a couple of previous runs in this neighborhood that there would be a rather short but steep hill in the final block before Peachtree Road, and had already planned to take a walk break in that area.  That walk break lasted closer to a full minute, but there weren't as many people passing me in that area.  I started running again right before I turned onto Peachtree Road to aim for the finish.

I had ran this stretch of road several times in the Peachtree-in-training course last spring/summer, and remembered that it always seemed longer to run than expected.  There was also a slight uphill elevation that I never seemed to appreciate enough on the initial outbound leg.  Nonetheless I managed to keep pace with the others, and don't recall being passed on this section.  I caught up to a woman who seemed to be running a bit slower than the others, but when she sensed that I was about to pass her - my heavy breathing probably gave me away - she sped up and kept up with me.  We had a fierce duel the rest of the way to the finish.  I had to press at times to stay even with her, then I would try to kick a little faster but she would do the same within the next step or two.  When we turned into the shopping center at the 3-mile mark, we both sped up, taking advantage of the gentle downhill slope.  I started to lose some ground, then I found one last reserve of energy.  Was it the beet juice?  I caught up to her in the final 50 feet to the finish line, to hear the announcer call out "Great effort, #456!"  We crossed more or less at the same time, and as we slowed down I congratulated her on a great race. 

The battle of the 26-minute finishers, making the final turn.
The woman directly behind me passed me a few seconds after this photo was taken. 

It's a shame that the race was really a miserable experience, solely due to the rain.  The organizers did everything possible to put on a great event; for instance, there were quite a few tents on the green fully staffed by sponsors, and the announcer was great and upbeat in her tone, but the one thing that the organizers couldn't control took the enjoyment out of the event for me.  I think that a drizzle wouldn't have been too bad, but this was a steady rain for the entire time that I was running.  Being completely soaked, I wanted nothing more after the race than to change into the dry clothes that I had brought with me, and within a few minutes of picking up my finisher's shirt, a cup of water and a banana, I was heading for the car. 

Official chip time: 26:38, 70th out of 314 total, 48th out of 142 men, 6th out of 17 men ages 50-55

Goal: Experimenting with a run/walk strategy in a 5K race; it's unclear if it helped, given the poor weather conditions.  But I'm glad I tried it, especially on a hilly course. 

Goal: Supporting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society; accomplished in a limited way.  Despite my negative tone in today's blog entry, it's purely because of the weather, not the organizers.  I will no longer scoff at friends who say that they are "fair-weather athletes", now that I know better.  But I hope to run this race again in a future year, in better weather. 

April 18, 2015: The ATC Singleton 10K, a. k. a. the Beet Juice Experiment

Goal C: To test a run-walk strategy for improving overall time
Goal B: To run the 10K with a negative split
Goal A: To improve on my personal record of 53:54

Today's race was a new one for me, a double loop of a 5K course in Norcross, on the northeast side of metro Atlanta.  I signed up for this race last year but then I broke my collarbone a week before, and was in no mood or condition to run on that day.  As this was a free race for Atlanta Track Club members, and I didn't urgently need to improve my qualifying time for a subsequent race, I decided that this would be a good race for some experiments. 

I was intrigued by a recent post from The Running Cat, on the benefits of beets and beet juice on running.  I've never liked the taste of beets, in fact beets are one of the few foods that I generally avoid eating.  But when I read about the beneficial effects of beet juice on vasodilation and VO2max, decreasing the amount of oxygen required to maintain a standard level of exercise, I decided that I should drink some beet juice before my next race.  In chemical terms, beets are a source of nitrate, which upon ingestion is biochemically reduced to nitric oxide, NO.  NO was Science magazine's Molecule of the Year in 1992, and the scientists who established the importance of NO in cardiovascular health were recognized by the 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine.  On the morning of race day, I drank the beet juice at 6 am, with the expectation that its effects would peak around 8 am, when I would begin the second loop. 

A sip of beet juice: oh my, that's vile!  This had better work!!

The other experiment was to rigorously incorporate walk breaks from the beginning of the race, beginning at the first 0.5 mile signal.  I would run fairly quickly at the beginning, but by taking a walk break after the first half-mile, and thereafter throughout the race, my heart rate could drop and then with some recovery I could quickly return to a good speed.  Jeff Galloway's run-walk philosophy worked well for me in the longer half-marathon race in March, so I thought it was worth trying in a shorter race. 

Bonnie took a shot at her first 10K this morning.

With my 2014 Peachtree-in-training coach
Curt Walker

It's been a rainy week in Atlanta, and it was drizzling when we were driving to the race.  Fortunately the drizzle stopped about an hour before the start, even though the roads were still wet during the race.  I began in the middle of wave B, starting exactly two minutes after the lead wave.  That proved to be the right pace for me, especially with the walk breaks.  I got off to a quick start, running the first half mile in about 4 minutes.  With the first half-mile alert, I forced myself to pull to the right side and take a short walk break, as other runners passed, but when I started running again, I felt invigorated and quickly caught up with the people who had passed me a moment earlier.  I wasn't completely rigorous about taking walk breaks every 0.5 mile, sometimes deferring for a minute until I reached an uphill section or spotted a water station, but that seemed sensible.  I did feel that I was probably running too quickly, and covered the first three miles in 8:11, 8:26, and 8:40, crossing the 5K mark at the end of the first loop at a bit past 26 minutes on the clock, 26:13 chip time.  I suspected that I couldn't run the second 5K quite as quickly, so I probably wouldn't achieve the negative split goal, but at least I now knew the race route. 

The elevation map.  The low points correspond to the turnaround points on the westward spurs. 

I managed to space the walk breaks fairly evenly.  Spoiler alert: you can see that I had a fast finish!

The route was gently hilly, but the spurs off of North Peachtree Street went downhill toward a gully, then back uphill to return to North Peachtree Street.  Fortunately I've run so many races with hills and so it was just more of the same challenge today.  I covered mile 4 in 8:59, but with 36 minutes showing on the clock, that meant that I had covered the four miles in 34 minutes, faster than my usual 4-mile time.  I reached the mile 5 marker in 9:10, a bit slower than I would have preferred, but the clock was showing 45:30 when I passed, and my tracker indicated my actual time was 43:27, which was precisely my Livvy's Love 8K time in January.  

After passing the mile 5 sign, and taking a relatively long walk break going uphill, I resolved to press a bit harder for the rest of the race.  But I didn't really manage to speed up until I passed the mile 6 marker, completing mile 6 in only 9:02, even with skipping a walk break at mile 5.5.  There were quite a few spectators as we reached the mile 6 marker, as we approached the park.  The first left turn was a welcome downhill and I picked up some speed, then made a second left turn to head for the finish.  There were two runners a few steps in front of me that I had been closing in on for the last few minutes, a woman on the left and a man on the right.  I started to catch up as we all furiously pressed forward with every last bit of energy.  The spectators seemed to enjoy our show and I heard someone cheer me by name (Curt Walker perhaps?)  As we reached the finish line, I managed to cross one step ahead of the man, but didn't quite catch the woman, and I missed seeing the race clock as I crossed.  

My timer was showing 54:02 as soon as I could check it, so I immediately knew that I was very close to my PR of 53:54.  I always start my timer a few seconds before I cross the starting line, and it takes a few seconds after finishing to stop the timer.  Thankfully the Atlanta Track Club posted results within a few hours, before I had completed this race report, and I'm thrilled to report that I shaved a few seconds to set a new PR of 53:50.  

Goal C: To test a run-walk strategy for improving overall time: Definitely successful! 

Goal B: To run the 10K with a negative split: not quite, but overall I didn't slow down too badly. 

Goal A: To improve on my personal record of 53:54: Achieved, at 53:50! 

Was it the beet juice?  Or the run-walk strategy?  By changing multiple variables, I didn't properly apply a scientific approach, but in any case the experiment was successful!  Now I just have to learn to endure the taste of beet juice! 

I also wore my runningnerds race team (rrt) shirt, following the encouragement posted on the team's Facebook page earlier this month.  The runningnerds make a point of greeting and cheering each other whenever we spot another race team member, which is a nice touch.  They definitely pumped me up a few times during the race, and hopefully I managed to reciprocate the good cheer.