Firecracker 4 Race Report

[Ryan]

Let's see, where to start? Haven't raced for nearly 7 months. Not in the kind of shape I expect of myself. Just finished off a big push trying to get myself in shape, which included 200 miles in 2 weeks with 56 miles at Lapham Peak. Yeah, I sound ready to race, don't I? Oh well, everyone has to start somewhere. No better time than the present.

Given the factors, I figured a 22 minute goal for a 4 miler would be reasonable. Attainable but by no means easy. I was still sticking to that goal even after waking up yesterday morning feeling like I had been run over by a fleet of semi trucks. I got to the race location at about 6:30 with the temperature already at 72 degrees and the humidity nice and high, registered, found a nice spot under a tree and just relaxed until warmup time. About 35-40 minutes before race time, I headed out for my warmup. Near the beginning, I heard someone coming up behind me. I looked back and there's Jeff heading up the trail so I looped back to pick him up and we ran out together until I was ready to turn back. As usual, I was scouting out the competition during the warmup and at the start line. A lot of high school or college aged guys, a few guys I know like Jeff, Rick Stefanovic, and Matt Tupta. Well, this is never a race where 22 minutes will be a winner so I wasn't expecting to win. Now, I know some of the guys I can expect to see around or ahead of me. While I knew quite a few of the high schoolers would be the type who tear out in the first mile and burn out the rest of the way, I also saw a few team shirts from schools where I know the coaching is good enough to teach the runners not to do that. Some of these guys are going to be contenders.

At the start, I got what I expected. A lot of young guys out front with a blazing start. I got boxed in a little bit and, instead of letting the guys around me keep me in check so I didn't get out too fast, got a bit claustrophobic and busted out. As a result, I probably ran the first mile a fair bit faster than I should have. I guess I'm also a bit mentally rusty from not racing for so long. Normally, I'd be telling myself to ride it out, not waste energy fighting for position or worrying about where I am.

By the mile mark, I'm already picking off guys who are fading. Shortly after the mile mark, I pick off the lead lady, who I later realize is Jackie Mulrooney, former Hartland Arrowhead high school star and I want to say still current UW-Platteville star. No shame in spending a mile or so behind her but I am now picking off people one by one and she's next in line. Through the second mile, I continue picking off people one by one.

By the two mile mark, it's getting harder to pick them off. They are less frequent and I think I'm beginning to fade like they are. The humidity is getting to me and the breeze is just right so, no matter what direction you're going, it's a hindrance. In your face, it's beating you down. At your back, it's just the right speed to create dead and even more stifling air. Mile 3 is becoming one that I really have to work but I know, if I can just get through this mile, I can gut out one more mile. I'm still looking ahead, at a guy with a red and white singlet and black shorts. I was gaining on him for a while but, after a while, I seem to just be holding.

When I saw the 3 mile mark, I was actually a bit disappointed. By that time, I was hoping that I had missed the 3 mile mark and was nearing what I knew would be a half mile or so to go. Guess not. Well, at least now I know how far I have to go and I can always gut out one more mile. That's about what the final mile was. Just gutting it out. By the final half mile, I knew I wasn't going to catch anyone else, although I still kept looking at the guys ahead of me. However, I also found myself slipping into a bad habit of wanting to know what kind of lead I had on the guy behind me. I don't like that. I always want to be facing forward, not worrying what's behind me. While I did keep thinking of the guys ahead of me, I did find myself splitting my attention at a few points and even looking back once. Another result of being a little rusty in the racing department. Around the final turn, though, and my finish wasn't rusty. Once I saw the finish line, there was no looking back, just pouring it on with whatever I had left. Of course, that wasn't much by that point but it was all I had. As I was approaching, I saw the clock and realized that 22 flat was already history but I could still get a low 22, which wouldn't be that bad given a course that was more difficult than I remembered from 5 years ago and unpleasant conditions. I crossed the finish line last seeing 22:19.

Results never did get posted at the race as far as I know. When results were finally posted online, I found out I finished 12th out of 607 finishers and second in the 25-29 age group behind Matt Tupta with an official time of 22:20. About 8-10 of the guys ahead of me were high school or college aged guys. Not a big surprise given how I was sizing up the competition before the race. This is not a real great time, it tells me I have a lot of work to do this summer, but I'm not going to complain about it. Given the conditions and the course that was more difficult than I remembered/expected, it wasn't out of line with my goal. Now, I just have to continue cracking down and see if I can get myself in shape in time to accomplish a goal or two this fall.

[jtpaten]

Nice work, Ryan. Just keep in mind, what isn't a great time for you (and at least 11 other speedsters) leaves the rest of us drooling with envy.

For perspective, I offer my 18:27 in a small town 5K last Saturday. I came in second overall. The 47-year-old winner confessed to having trouble in the heat, which is why he beat me by "only" 45 seconds compared to the 2:30 lead he had on me at another 5K a couple months ago.

Actually, I think seven of the top 10 were in their 40s. (At 36, I wasn't one of them.) These dinky races can be humbling, too.

[Ryan]

Joel, thanks. I do try to keep things in perspective, at least at times. That's why the race will go in my training log with a note that I was 12th out of 607. However, you don't accomplish aggressive goals by thinking how much faster than most people you already are. You accomplish aggressive goals by focusing on those 11 people (in this case) who beat you.

For now, I'll look back and use those 11 people ahead of me as motivation to push myself to a higher level. Who knows, though? Maybe 20 or 40 years from now, I'll look back and say beating nearly 600 people was pretty darn impressive for a guy who felt like he wasn't in good racing shape.

[snowski12000]

Congratulations Ryan, nice work. I'm sure that your hard work will continue and pay off when it counts the most. Glad to hear that you put the hammar down at the end to finish strong. Great runners do that.  As a side note I want to say thanks. First, you folks got me thur my marathon training and I qualified for Boston. Second, I ran the Surfcity 5K for the second year in a row, last year 24:37  10th in my age group (55-59), this year 21:17 4th in my age group (55-59). The same guy has won it the last 3 years for my group. 19:01 and 19:56. I'm getting closer. Like that old country song says " I'm not as good as I once was,  but I'm good once,  as I ever was. Thanks again for all your help along the way back into the running world. Ski

[Ryan]

Snowski, thanks and congratulations on the great year to year improvement. It sounds like you're setting yourself up to challenge that guy in the near future. If not in time to do so in this age group, in the 60-64 age group.

[MothAudio]

Awesome report. You put me right there with your writing. That's the only way I'll ever know what it's like up front. I don't race much either. I've only run three races since my BQ last Fall. The Flying Pig marathon [BQ], a half and a 5k. I'm curious why you have race even less frequently? Is it that you don't feel you're in "race condition"? Apparently, you're not afraid to toe the line when in less than "tip top" shape. Thanks for sharing.

MikE

[Ryan]

Mike, thanks. In the past, I've given even more descriptive reports but I didn't have the time this time around.

Actually, if it makes sense, I'm not totally sure why I race so infrequently. I think it involves many issues.

First, while I raced before I was in top shape this time around, I usually don't like to toe the line unless I know I'm in shape for a good performance. However, I overcome that from time to time like I did Tuesday. Part of this, though, is a hesitance of racing during base training. I probably should race at least occasionally during base training but I very often do not. I didn't this time around, either. This week just happens to work out as a bit of a recovery week after base training before I do my first track workout Saturday.

I also think that, at times, my competitive flame burns a little low and I become a person who simply loves running, not racing. I guess you could say I become a non-competitive runner for periods of time. That's what happened to me this spring. I didn't want to race, I didn't even want to train for racing. I just wanted to run 25-30 miles a week for the enjoyment of running.

Finally, I feel like I was overraced in high school and college. With the way I train, I can't constantly be racing. About two races a month is really my max. When I was in high school and college racing nearly every week, sometimes in high school track 2-3 times per meet with 1-2 meets a week, I just had some trouble handling it. I guess I've been burned enough times that I'm now hesitant to put my hand anywhere near the flame. As a result, I usually end up underracing instead of overracing.

Whatever the situation, I'm working on changing that this summer. I have the intention of running one more race in July. I would then like to run 1-2 races in August before Stout's alumni meet and Al's Run, which both are always in my schedule, in September. At that point, I'm sure I'll do at least one more race in October and I have a race for November in mind so I can keep at least a bit sharp for Jingle Bell in December. I didn't run a single race during the first half of the year but I think I'm working out a fairly full schedule for the second half of the year.

[RandyS]

Ryan,

Great job! Your 2006 season's off to a good start.

I look forward to reading future race reports as your schedule develops.

Randy

[peace467]

Hope you don't mind if I post under your thread Ryan.  I would've posted earlier but I was hoping that I would have an accurate official time and place to report.  Due to a scoring blunder of rather large proportions I have neither and about 60 other runners are in the same boat.  Go to the Badgerland Striders Graffiti board to read the gory details, I won't go into them here.  Suffice to say that I've always touted Badgerland Strider's races as accurate courses and well timed.  The Firecracker Four is a premier race, has a 28 year history and I ran it 20+ years ago.  It's part of the club championship series.  It draws a great field.  I had been talking it up to my running buddies, including Ryan, and I feel badly that this fubar occurred.  I feel as if I have a bit of egg on my face because I had spoken so highly of the race. 

Enough of the preamble.  I got to the race site, registered and as I started my warmup saw somebody who I thought might be Ryan.  As picked up the pace to catch him he turned around and so we did some of the warmup together.  I got in a 3 mile warmup, and though it was in the mid 70s and humid I was happy with the weather because I've run this race in alot worse.  I did some strides before the start and settled in about 3 or 4 rows back which ended up being a little too far back as I ended up passing a ton of people in the first 1/2 mile.  I was hammering it pretty good and feeling real good, alot of nice downhill slopes to pickup speed.  I recognized Rick Stefanovic and ran behind him a little bit, knowing that he'd finish way ahead of me and that I definitely shouldn't pass him.  I knew my pace was fast but I felt good.  At about the 3/4 mile mark Ted Shue passed me so I knew I was probably going out a bit fast but I felt good.  Hit the mile in 5:38 and felt like I was in good shape.

The second mile seemed to take a long time.  There were a bunch of fairly long slight uphill and downhill slopes.  I kept getting passed on the uphills and passing people on the downhills.  That's how I like to race, conserving energy on the uphills and getting the most out of the downhills.   I actually looked at my watch to see if maybe I had missed the two mile mark as it seemed to take forever.  No such luck, my watch said 10:XX so I hadn't missed it but it was coming right up.  I ran a 6:03 or so second mile and I felt my goal of breaking 24 minutes was well within reach.

The third mile things started to get more difficult.  My legs felt dead and my breathing was labored.  It was getting tough.  I did like the course as it had some nice uphills, downhills, curves including s-curves.  Plus, there was always people to run with.   I hit the 3 mile mark and I had run a 6:08.  With the extra fractions in these miles it ended up that I needed to run a 6:09 last mile.  I started to doubt whether I had that in me at this point.  I thought back to a 14 miler in high humidity and 80+ degree temps where I died two days ago and figured maybe that had taken too much out of me.  I gutted it out and started racing someone who I later found out to be Steve Waisman, a big guy who I've run against in the past but I didn't recognize him out there because of his shaved head.  Steve would pass me repeatedly on the uphills and I would pass him back on the downhills.  We reached the last uphill, I passed Steve and we were in the little park.   1/4 of a mile or so to go.  I thought this is the time to be in oxygen debt, this is where it's supposed to hurt!  Still, I didn't have much zip in my legs and didn't feel as if I was going too fast.  Over the bridge and on the grass and an uphill slope to the finish.  I poured it on, feeling the agony/exctasy of the finish and breaking 24 by a comfortable margin of 8 seconds by my watch, a time of 23:52.

Officially, my time is 25:XX due to the screwup.  I know what I ran and that's the important thing.

Afterwards I spotted a bunch of runners who I knew and joined the crew doing a cooldown.  It was great to run with the bunch of guys, even though some of us are rivals on different teams, everyone seemed to get along well, which was neat.

Then I joined another group of friends and hung out at the park for awhile.  All in all it was a great day.

[MothAudio]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I can understand and relate to your feelings. I used to race much more frequently when I was younger, but that lead to injuries and burn out. Two things I hope to avoid. With running more miles than I ever have I need to be careful about "max efforts" and pick my spots as I tend to take longer than most people to recover from races. That said, I wished I did [could] race more. I think it a good thing to race just enough to keep sharp. Though lately I've been pretty happy with my mental toughness and tactics in the few races I've done. Maybe somethings do improve as we age. All the best with our training and races. I'm confident we'll both make ourselves proud with our efforts this year. 

MikE   

[Anne]

It's good to see a race report from you Ryan. Congratulations on your finish, sounds like this race draws some tough competition.

Your comment about hoping you'd missed the mile marker only to find you hadn't passed it yet sounded familiar, I've done that before.

Time to buckle down for your future races, good luck with  training. 

[GTF]

Welcome back to racing. 

[Peter]

Nice race report Ryan and Jeff. You both ran well under less than ideal conditions. Not sure how much they've changed that course, but I remember running the Firecracker about 25-26 years ago, and being one of those foolish high school kids who went out very fast and suffered for it in the last mile. I remember Kim Merritt passing me near the end, and not feeling that great to be passed, even though she was a Boston and NYC marathon champion.

I sort of wimped out and ran a 1 mile race on the 4th in Milton, Wisconsin. I am not in any semblence of shape, and my feet are aching constantly, but I thought I could gut it out for a mile. Saw the H.S. burners tear out at the start (including my son) and figured I would catch up to them slowly. As I passed my son about 2 minutes in, he pointed at his teammate who was up in 2nd. All I saw was a guy behind him with gray hair that I figured might be in my age group (turned out he was). By 1/2 way I had passed all but the leader (a Fort Atkinson grad currently running at Iowa State) and my son's teammate. I caught him near the 3/4 mark, at the start of a downhill that takes you to the last turn and the finish. He started surging and I yelled at him! But he helped me keep pace and I passed him in the last 200 meters or so. My time was 5:06 for 2nd overall, and only 9 seconds slower than 2 years ago when I was in far better shape and got 3rd.

Thanks again for the reports guys. It shows me how much work I have to do....