AHEF 5K Race Report

I ran in the Bill Gallagher Memorial 5K this morning. I finished 4th overall and 2nd in my age group. I was hoping for a little faster time than the 19:18 my watch recorded (they just kept track of placings, not times), but I'm content.

At the starting line, there were a bunch of kids; which this race if famous for. I knew they would all start out like gangbusters, so I hung back a little bit from the starting line to let them have their fun. Sure enough, when the race started, those kids took off like they were running a 50 yard dash -- not a 3.1 mile run.

As the youngsters started dropping like flies in the first quarter mile, I found myself having to weave in and out of them. They would pretty much stop completely and start walking when they gave up their little sprint and I could hear their parents yelling to them to get out of the way. But, kids will be kids.

When all of the little ones were out of the way, I looked ahead and saw a couple of rather serious looking runners about 20 yards ahead of me. Knowing they were the leaders, I decided I would try to maintain my current distance behind them and hopefully have enough gas in the tank to make a move at the end.

The route consisted of old park bike paths which were quite crumbly and cracked. I noted that this surface was harder to run on than smooth, predictable streets. Your feet land at somewhat odd angles, which is a little harder on the muscles. Part of the route also looped around a small lake twice, so I did have to pass quite a few slower folks whom I was lapping. They usually didn't hear me coming and were not moving out of the way, so a little bit more bobbing and weaving there.

Coming around to the final mile, I noticed I was gaining a little bit on the leaders. The 2nd and 3rd place guys were only about 10 yards ahead of me. Suddenly, I turned a corner and the wind was very strong in our faces. It took a lot out of me, I'm not going to lie. I had a side ache soon after that, and at about the time I was planning to try to kick it down and try to pass the guys in front of me, I suddenly thought I was definitely going to throw up. So, I just held on as best I could and was very relieved to cross the finish line.

I was proud that I held back on the first mile, staying around 6:10 pace (in the past, I've gone much faster and crashed and burned in the middle of the race). Looking back, I'm not sure I would have done anything differently in that race. I ran the best I could with what I had that morning. I simply need to keep training and working at it. Not to mention, running a hard race like that is really the best training/workout you can get.

Finally, Spring.

It's been a long time coming, but the weather is finally starting to get nice for running. In my book, anytime you can comfortably wear shorts, it's a pretty good day. It was almost 40 degrees and sunny when I started today. It's around this temperature where I sort of have this ritual of starting off in long sleeves, then, at the end of the warm up, stripping down to short sleeves and arm warmers. After the first mile of running harder, I'm down to just arm warmers and shirtless. Some people may think it's weird to wear arm warmers and no shirt, but in this weather, once your core is generating a ton of heat, it's really only my arms that get cold. And when they do, it is distracting.

So, anyhow, it is a very freeing feeling running shirtless in the cool, early spring air. Definitely makes you run faster.

I'm staying focused on an overall goal of just getting faster and better. I'm not worrying about race goals or anything like that. Just, am I getting better overall? The workouts and races are just meant to serve that purpose. There will be good days, and bad days, but am I getting better?

Here is the data from today's run: