This weekend I had at least four races to choose from, including a race in College Park (south suburban Atlanta) and the Book Mobile 5K in Peachtree Corners (northeast suburbs). I nearly signed up for the Quarry Crusher in Norcross, which I ran two years ago, 660 feet down into the quarry and then back out, for a 3.8 mile run. Then I checked the weather forecast, right before I entered my credit card information, and saw a high chance of thunderstorms. I decided to wait until race day to register for anything. As a fair-weather runner, I didn't want to pay to run in the rain.
On Thursday evening I ran with Big Peach Running Company in Decatur, for a nice 4-1/2 mile jaunt on a warm evening shortly before sunset. Carl Line, a regular at the Big Peach group runs and a fellow age grouper, told me that he was running the 5K in the Locomotive series in Kennesaw (northwest suburbs). He has run quite a few of their races, which features a series of four races progressing from 5K, 10K, 15K, and a half-marathon in December. After I looked up the information online, and found a USATF map correlating to the likely route, the route didn't look too hilly, only a 9.2 meter range from high to low. That's only about 30 feet, right? I decided that was a better choice, to keep my legs healthy.
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| Hmmm, Barrett "Summit". And it's not a hilly course? |
When I awoke this morning, the weather looked promising, with the first chance of rain after 9 am in Kennesaw, perfect for an 8 am start. At 6 am in the morning, I only needed about 35 minutes to reach the race site, even though it was 30 miles from the house. On-site registration was simple. After some dynamic stretches, Carl and I took a 1.2-mile reconnaissance of the main loop for the race. This part of the route was on the streets surrounding an office complex, which had almost no traffic at all at 7 am on Saturday morning. It wasn't flat, because nothing in metro-Atlanta outside of an oval track is flat, but the gentle rolling hills were the type of terrain that I'm accustomed to running. It was warm, however, and felt quite humid, as it had rained a little last night. At least I've run several warm evening workouts in the past two weeks, so I'm getting acclimated to running in warmer weather. It was only partly cloudy, so I wore sunglasses.
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| 66 degrees wasn't bad for May, but the 94% humidity was real! |
After watching the 1K race - which actually had more adults than children running - I did another 1/2-mile warmup on my own, working in a couple of strides, perfectly paced the porta-potty race, and then joined Carl at the start. He had warned me earlier that it wasn't a chip start and there might be quite a few children in the race, and so he lined up near the front, and I lined up a couple of people behind him. I called out "Carl, you'll be my pacer today!" and he called out "You might outrun me." "It's only happened once" I replied, which is true.
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| The 1K winner approaches the finish line, about 4 minutes after starting. |
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| Will I pass any of these people? |
Who in this larger group will pass me?
We counted down from 10 seconds, I started my watch one second early, and we were off. I resolved to run the first mile at a steady pace. As with last week's 4-miler, I planned to run 30 second surges starting at 7:30 elapsed, then return to steady pace for 90 seconds, and repeat for the rest of the race. I was moving pretty well as we left the parking area of the office complex for a gradual but long downhill section. Carl was probably about 50 feet ahead of me, and I resolved to try to keep that distance from growing, but didn't try to catch up, not wanting to burn out too early. As the road leveled out and then back on a gentle uphill, I dialed back my speed a bit to just under an 8 minute / mile pace.
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| Shortly after completing mile 1. Courtesy of TrueSpeedPhoto.com |
The first mile passed quickly. As the mile 1 marker came within sight, my watch signaled 7:30: time for the first surge! I moved strongly past a couple of runners, then settled back down at the 8:00 minute mark. And I had finished mile 1 in 7:38. That's close to my 5K personal best pace (7:34 min / mile). I continued passing other runners, just hoping that I wouldn't see them again later in the race. The distance between Carl and me had grown a little more, and I wasn't sure that I could catch up to him. I knew with his experience, he wouldn't bonk in a 5K, so I would have to earn everything on my own if I gained any ground on him. At 9:30 elapsed, I threw in another surge, turning into the parking lot near the end of the first loop. At 10:00, I decided to take a very short walk break through the water station. I think only one person passed me there. I tried to empty the cup while resuming running without choking and dropping the cup into the trash barrel. I missed the barrel but everything else was OK. We were running through the empty parking lot on the opposite side of the buildings from the start/finish line, and I kept a steady pace, making another short surge at 11:30 on level ground, and again at 13:30 heading downhill. (I was able to see the little upward blips on the Garmin data afterwards!). The second mile was tougher. I reached the mile 2 marker at the crest of the hill. I hadn't imagined that 30 feet elevation over a quarter-mile would be tough, but afterwards I saw that my heart rate had maxxed out at that point. I had already been running "hot" for most of the past mile, although I wasn't focusing enough on my watch at this point. 7:58 for mile 2, 15:36 elapsed. Just 1.11 miles to go!
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| At 2.00 miles: speed vs. heart rate (above), elevation vs. speed (below). |
Mind-over-matter pushed me to maintain my pace. A pre-teen boy with a green shirt was just ahead of me. Carl was out of mind if not quite out of sight, but now I just wanted to pass the kid. I caught up to him with another surge at 17:30 while heading downhill, but then he caught up again and passed me. I was breathing so hard, I might have terrified him if I had gotten any closer, so I stayed to his left while I was just behind. At 19:30 I surged again, on a little tiny uphill section, whew! The boy just kept moving! That must have been the 4 kilometer point, just 1 kilometer to go. But now I was struggling. I can see now on the Garmin graphs how I had gradually slowed, except for the surges, which were not as strong as they had been 10 minutes earlier. At 21:00 I reached the water station for the second time, but didn't take water or slow down at all. The boy stopped for a cup, I moved ahead! At 21:30, on level ground, I surged again. But the boy passed me, completely rejuvenated by an ounce or two of water and a walk break of no more than a few seconds. Oh, to be young again! And now, there was another boy wearing blue that I hadn't noticed before. They were racing each other. To the boys, I was out of sight, out of mind. For me, I just needed to reach the finish line. The watch signaled 23:30, I thought I surged but the Garmin only shows that here I was at my slowest speed other than the walk break: 6.7 mph. I know, that isn't a bad pace at all, and especially compared to where I was five years ago. As I turned back onto the main drag of the parking lot, the mile 3 alert sounded, 8:19 and 23:55 elapsed.
And there was the finish line! But
So
Far
Away!
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| Approaching the finish. I look better than I felt. Courtesy of TrueSpeedPhoto.com |
Nevertheless, this time I found a higher gear, 24:30, getting closer, 24:50, can I get to the finish within 10 seconds? I sped up some more to dash through the finish line, seeing 25:02 on the clock, which was my official time. The announcer called my name, I raised my hand to acknowledge, and only then remembered to turn off my watch. I picked up and drained down a cup of water, then had to walk around the parking lot for a couple of moments to regain some equilibrium. After a few moments my heart had slowed enough to find Carl and congratulate him, and after a banana and more water, I set out for an easy 1-mile cooldown.
By the time that I had returned, the results were posted, and I learned that I was 26th out of 290 overall, third in the 55-59 age group! Carl was second, about 45 seconds ahead of me, and he finished less than 15 seconds behind first place in our age group! But afterwards I saw that the overall male winner was 58, and the first place male masters went to a 57-year-old. To avoid doubling up on prizes, the first place age group was actually the third finisher in the 55-59 range, so I was fifth in my age group. Nonetheless this was a nice surprise. I never expect to place unless the race is very small, and was delighted to accept my third place age group medal, with Carl's name announced immediately after mine. The overall winner was a woman in her mid-30's, the only runner to finish in less than 20 minutes.
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| 3rd place (above) With Carl in 2nd place (below) |
Once again, my legs felt good. My conditioning needs some work, but that should improve if I can lose a few pounds while gaining strength this summer.
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| I really like the shirt, although it's the first running shirt that I've received with buttons! |
Everything about this race was done well, and it was definitely worth the drive - and would have been so even if I had not won anything. The course was exactly as advertised, 3.15 miles on my watch with 30 foot elevation changes. The cones clearly protected and directed the route, and the water station was manned to the very last runner/walker, with plenty for everyone on a warm morning. If there were any cars, I never noticed them getting close to the course. I'll come back for the 10K and 15K races in June and September, respectively!
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