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| Ah, the good ol' days, before COVID-19 and physical distancing |
The Atlanta Track Club designated this weekend for the virtual Decatur-DeKalb 4-miler race. This is normally a hot hilly humid race, typically scheduled in mid-July, then last year moved to the first weekend in August to provide a little more recovery time from the Peachtree Road Race. Originally I had hoped that the weather might cool down by the end of August, but when I woke this morning, the temperature was 75 deg F with 88% humidity.
Brian Minor and I were originally going to virtually race each other - we had a fun time in a competition last year on the hills of Decatur (read all about my victory here) - but he had a family emergency, so I was running on my own today. To complicate things a bit more (or perhaps not), Coach Carl arranged another version of the R.A.T. race "Running Alone Together" for a 5K distance this morning. Knowing that I couldn't run a fast 5K and a separate fast 4-miler on the same weekend, I decided to just check my time when I reached 3.11 miles, on my way to finishing 4 miles.
Last weekend I scouted a couple of locations for four miles out-and-back, one route on the Silver Comet Trail and the other on Columns Drive, both in Cobb County. But a few days ago, perhaps not feeling that motivated, I decided to just run 16 laps on the track at Tucker Middle School, just a few miles from home. At least I wouldn't have to drive 30 minutes or more before and after the race. And Tucker Middle School is in DeKalb County, so at least I had the location partially correct, even if I was replacing a challenging hilly course with a pancake-flat track.
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| 10 minutes before sunrise |
As I've subscribed to the Charge Running app, I decided to go along with a virtual 4-mile race that I found on the app, "Fast on the First" hosted by Coach Casey Green. I first used the app for the Summer Heat Half-Marathon in July. Since then I've enjoyed some live interaction with Charge Running coaches through my cellphone on solo morning runs. After warming up with about 3/4 mile from a parking spot in nearly-empty downtown Tucker, I started up the app with about a minute to go before the 7:00 am starting time. Coach Casey gave us a 10-second countdown, I started my watch, and took off!
I started at the beginning of a straight 100-meter stretch, thinking that a 400 meter track would require me to run 36 steps beyond 16 laps to cover the 4-mile distance, assuming that the track was true and that I stayed on the inside of lane 1. Story of my running life: I started much too fast. Although I wasn't working that hard, I quickly pulled back on my reins until I was moving closer to an 8 min / mile pace. The first mile went by pretty quickly: 7:49 when the alert sounded, and I had not even completed 4 full laps! I worked around a solitary walker on one of the curves, giving her at least 6-feet distance, but I ran the rest of the first mile in lane 1, as the walker had courteously moved to the outer lane before I passed her the next time.
It turns out that Charge Run was recorded from New Year's Day 2020, hence the "Fast on the First" title for a January 1 race. The coach had recorded encouragement to the runners who had done the race live on that day. How much things have changed since then; a year that began with such hope has turned into one of the worst years in my own lifetime. Anyway, the second mile felt the same as the first mile, but when I looked at my watch, I had somehow slowed to an 8:25 min / mile pace after lap 5. I picked up the effort just slightly, and finished mile 2 in 8:17. But I was even further back on the curve, even though I had not deviated at all from lane 1. Perhaps the Garmin wasn't completely accurate this morning?
Mile 3 started to feel a little tough. My heart rate was around 170 beats per minute, but I was more than halfway done. I had not recognized that much of the pop music soundtrack on the Charge Running app. When I first began running, I quickly discovered that I actually enjoyed the experience of running when I didn't listen to music, even when I was running solo. But the music soundtrack sort of re-created the experience of what a race might be like, whether the music came from live bands on the curbs or simply from a spectator playing music from the speakers in the car. Then near the end of mile 3, I recognized Queen's "Don't Stop Me Know", one of their hits from the late 1970's.
"I'm gonna go, go, go, there's no stopping me"
I'll admit that I don't remember the song from that era. I really only noticed it in the credits of the recent biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody", which I watched on a long international flight last year. But Charge Running can certainly pick good songs when a tired runner needs a pick-up. When Freddie Mercury sang
"I wanna make a supersonic man out of you"
I ran just a bit faster, as the mile 3 alert signaled 8:10, 24:16 elapsed. That was close to what I was hoping to run. I pushed through the 3.11 mile mark and hit the lap button on my watch. 25:06 was definitely better than any of my other 5K race times this year (in person or virtual).
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| A couple of screenshots from the movie credits (YouTube link), showing Queen at the band's height of popularity 40 years ago. Back then, my hair wasn't quite as long as Brian May's, but it was just as curly. |
With just 3-1/2 laps to go, I tried to maintain a fast pace. But having completed the R.A.T. race 5K distance, and without having Brian Minor for competition, just running to post a time on the Atlanta Track Club page wasn't enough motivation to keep pushing myself. I deliberately took my foot off of the accelerator for the rest of the distance, settling for a decent but sustainable 9 min / mile pace to finish 4.00 miles in 33:04.
Even with the slowdown in the last mile, that was a good 4-mile time for me, less than a minute slower than my personal best.
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| Strava analysis shows a decent 5K effort, speeding up just a bit in mile 3, and finishing strongly for the last 0.11 mile. |
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| The Garmin pace chart shows a steady decline in my pace from start-to-finish, except for a couple of minutes of acceleration when the Queen song was played around 24 minutes into the run! "Cause I'm having a good time, having a good time" It wasn't the best way to run a 4-mile race, but I made it. |
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