Race Reports

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

First, I realize the blog has been a little silent recently. I just got overwhelmed with things going on. From end of summer vacations to commitments to runners I’m coaching and various other things, I just didn’t have the time. The blog should return to its normal schedule next week.

It’s always fun to go back to my old hangout and see how well I can hang with the guys who are running the same routes and, in at least some cases, the same meets I once ran now over 15 years ago. This year, I had a little extra bonus of talking with the team at my old high school the day before.

As for the race, though, it was a little different than in prior years. The high school where we usually run is undergoing some construction so the meet got moved this year to the Red Cedar Trail and Riverside Park, along the shores of the Red Cedar River. Initially, I thought this would make the course much faster. In retrospect, though, I think it only made the course slightly faster. The trail was wet from recent rain and anyone who has run on wet crushed limestone trails knows how slippery they can get. We were also running upstream so, while it wasn’t too noticeable, there was generally an incline throughout the first 3 miles. In addition, the last mile through the park was much like the high school course. A grassy, uneven surface that saps your energy while slowing you down. All of this isn’t an excuse for a bad time or anything like that, just an explanation of why you might see a faster overall pace at a longer race in two weeks. That’s normal for the high school course and I’m not going to be surprised if that’s how it works out for this course also.

Given the point to point nature of this course, we had to get to the start somehow. I joined a few fellow alumni in walking part of the way while reminiscing about our times in Menomonie, before a couple of us started running with about 2 miles to go. We noted the slippery spots but I was thinking some of them, especially the wooden bridges, were things we would just have to deal with. No getting around them, we’d just have to do our best to keep our feet under us.

After the usual pre-race ritual, we were off. Given the narrow trail we were starting on, I lined up near the back. This is an unusual starting position for me but it makes sense given the strength and depth of the team. I knew going in I didn’t have a chance of competing against anyone on the current team except maybe a few freshmen. Last year, I had a good race and beat a single freshman. So I lined up between the freshmen and my fellow alumni.

At the start, it didn’t take long to get moving. I settled into a rhythm in front of the alumni pack with a few freshmen around. Once the initial pace settled, I found myself moving up a bit and closing in on a pack that I assumed was most or all freshmen. I worked my way through that group while offering a few words of encouragement, then set my eye on the next pack. I slowly gained on them through the first mile and, when I heard a coach recording 5:37 for them, figured I ran about 5:40. Shortly after, I caught one guy falling off the back of the pack and encouraged him to try to hang with the pack. Then I caught the 3 remaining guys and made some comment amounting to who wants to go after the next pack. One of the guys had an entertaining comment that I can’t recall exactly but could be summarized as "no" and I just wanted to say I’m twice your age, if I can go after those guys you can suck it up and go with. Instead, I just took the lead and kept the pace honest. I was hoping for some shared work but, for about the next mile, I was in the lead. We cruised through the 2 mile and I heard one of the guys say 11:20 so that was another 5:40 mile for me.

Somewhere in mile 3, I don’t know if I began fading or the guys started moving more but two took over the lead and I sat with the third, right behind the two leaders. I hung there for a while, occasionally feeling good enough to pull even with the leaders but often just sitting behind. That was the start. Then it became occasionally falling behind a step before battling back. As long as they were not accelerating, I was going to do all I could to stay with them as long as I could. I never know when I might catch a second wind and be able to push them through the finish.

Then the coach who was out recording splits cruised through on his bike at about 2.5 miles. He told the guys, if you’re feeling good, it’s time to move. The guy who had a comment for me earlier said something summing up to he’s not feeling good but all three of those guys pulled away from me right after the coach went by and that was it for me. I battled to stay with them but could only watch them pull away. Through the 3 mile mark, there were a couple members of the women’s team saying 16-something. That means, even as those guys dropped me, I must have picked up the pace to go sub-5:40.

Just after the 3 mile mark, we turned off the trail and into the park. Wow. The moment I took my first step off the trail, I knew it was going to be a battle. The grass was long and wet, the footing uneven. It just sapped any energy I had left from my legs. In addition, it wasn’t level at all. There were these little rises and drops throughout the park that just messed with you. With the wet grass, I couldn’t really let myself go on the drops and the rises just sapped more energy. That mile, I was still looking at the guys ahead of me but really just trying to survive.

The final mile was a half mile loop around the park, run twice. Near the end of my first lap, someone was coming on me hard. For some reason, it didn’t occur to me I was being lapped. I just figured, if he passes me that hard, I have no response. I got passed just before the split between going out for the second lap and going into the finish line. I saw the guy who passed me split to the finish line as I was heading out to my second lap. Then it occurred to me. People were cheering for Patrick. That’s Patrick Jenkins, top man on the team and reigning WIAC champion. Hey, I was hurting at that point. My mind wasn’t the sharpest. Anyway, that made me feel less bad about being almost a half mile behind him.

Nothing much happened in the last half mile. I kept watching the guys ahead, hoping someone would fade, but more realistically thinking I need to keep pushing to keep from getting passed or at least make anyone who is going to try to pass earn it. I succeeded in preventing any passes and, as I look at the results, realize I didn’t have much to worry about. As I rounded that final turn toward the finish line, I saw the clock just past 23 minutes. The last number I saw was 23:07.

Final results had me 30th overall, 6th on the alumni team and first alumni runner to have graduated before 2013, in 23:08. Yes, my last mile was 6+ minutes. It was just a tough mile. Again, I won’t be one bit surprised if I have a faster average pace at Al’s Run but this race has always been about competing and not worrying about time. I felt like I competed well. Last year, I was only able to beat one freshman and, after he ran with me for much of the race, I was able to pull away from him late. This year, I was able to get in front of 7 freshmen. I feel like I’m at least as fit as last year, possibly slightly more fit, and I ran the best race possible out there. It will probably be my only race this year outside of the top 25 and surely the only race I’m not in the top half of the overall field but that’s the nature of the competition, not a reflection on how I ran.

This leaves me feeling confident in my position as I head into Al’s Run.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Every year, I tell myself I’m not going back to this race. Every year, it draws me back in. This year, I was going back and forth when Ed offered me a free entry if I run on the Potawatomi team. So I was back.

This course always frustrates me. I know by now it’s just a slow course and I’m running for place, not time. The field is also deep. Over the past several years, at my best I would struggle to get in the top 10. In recent years, top 20 or 25 would be the best I could hope for. So my goal was set. Top 25 finish and see if I could win my age group. I finished a close second in the age group last year.

As Ed and I warmed up, we realized how warm and humid it was. It hasn’t been a warm and humid summer but, on this day, a simple 1.5 miles of easy running left me soaked in sweat. Still, we all face the same conditions. I just had to get out there and battle on. We also noticed that it looked like there would be a course change. There were cones suggesting we’d be coming off a bridge that the course never before ran across. I wasn’t quite sure how this meant but I figured this change couldn’t make the course more challenging so I was welcoming the change.

The start line was pretty narrow so I lined up right behind the PRO team. I knew they would get out well so I wouldn’t get held up. This worked out well as they all got out as well as my legs were going to allow me to get out.

Around the first turn and down the long stretch toward the east, I just settled into a solid but somewhat relaxed first mile pace. I felt like I should be going faster but my legs just didn’t want to and I didn’t want to start struggling so early so I didn’t try to fight it.

Shortly after turning on to the southbound stretch, I found myself pacing the second pack. I kept the effort up but not quite redlining it. Next thing I know, someone is pulling up on my left shoulder and I hear a familiar voice greeting me. I look over and it’s Tim. I figured he’d be there so I wasn’t surprised to see him. This is good for me. I have someone to run with. Kind of like Al’s Run last year, my plan became to let him go a bit in the first half, then try to bring him back in during the second half. Maybe we could work together through that second half to pick off runners who were fading.

My legs still didn’t feel responsive so I let Tim go and just tried to remain within reach. Tim worked his way up through a few people falling off the lead pack and I just hung back a bit, picking off those same people a little later. Things stayed pretty much the same through the mile mark and into mile 2.

After we turned around on Canal Street, we went down a gradual slope and I tried to use that to get my legs moving a little more. I had some success with that but not a ton. I did bring Tim back a little but he still had a nice gap on me. Around a turn we went back into an industrial area and into the shade of a factory after another turn. That shade sure felt nice but it didn’t last long before we hit the trail and crossed the river. Again, I was gaining some on Tim but my legs weren’t totally happy about the pace and I think I let myself back off a bit, which allowed Tim to build the gap back up.

A little after the 2 mile mark, we had a hard right, crossed a bridge, then a hard left and we were running back toward Miller Park and the finish line in its parking lots. I told myself this is it, about 3/4 of a mile to go. I passed a couple of guys and tried with all I had to close on Tim but I think he was also picking it up and, if anything, pulling away from me a bit over the last 1/4 to 1/2 mile.

At the 3 mile mark, one of the guys I just passed came back on me. I think he was the first person to pass me since Tim passed me in the first mile. He said something like "I know you can go faster" and I wanted to just puke on him. He obviously doesn’t know who I am, I’m already going as fast as I can. I tried with everything I had to go faster but I just couldn’t. As I approached the finish line, I saw the clock ticking through the 17:50s. I thought I got to the finish line at 17:58 or 17:59 and about in 24th or 25th place.

It turns out my final time was actually 18:01. But time means nothing at this race. I finished 25th overall and 1st in the 35-39 age group. That’s what counts. Ed and I also helped Potawatomi move up from a 10th place team finish last year to 3rd place this year.

Team HillRunner.com had a solid showing out there also. Three members who are currently signed up for Team HillRunner.com (sign up!) were there and finished 23rd, 25th, 50th.

All in all, it was a good rust buster for me. I need a couple recent races behind me before I’m really ready to race a good 5K. This was my first race in 2 months so I wasn’t expecting greatness. I could feel that I wasn’t quite able to redline the way you need to for a good 5K. That will come back with another race or two. In the meantime, this was a good tune-up race for the fall season.

This article was originally posted by trivianut at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Ok, so I don’t race as much as I used to. But at age 50, with injuries and very inconsistent training the last 6 years,I’m glad for the last 6 months of pain free running where I’ve run 3 out of every 4 days during this time. Most of these runs have been on the dreaded treadmill, which has been much more forgiving on my knees. I had planned to run the Milton Independence Run on 7/4, but had no idea what to expect. All my treadmill runs were btw 7:45 and 8:15 pace, and my longest run was just 7 miles. My feeling was I could probably hold 7:00 pace, but would likely fall off in the last few miles due to my lack of overall mileage. I was right about that.

We had great weather in Wisconsin for the 4th, with temps in the low 60s at 8:00am. I could tell at the start that running easy for the first mile would still be too fast. 6:20 was too fast, but it was time to start working. After the 2nd mile in 6:36, I thought I was in a better pace. The mostly uphill 3rd mile was 7:00, and the return 4th mile only 4 seconds faster in 6:56. So my sub 7 cushion was gone, and I just had to hold on to the finish. It didn’t help that from 1.5 to 5.5 miles there was no one within 50 yards of me ahead or behind to key on. When I finally started getting caught by other runners, I did two things; sized them up for age group competition, and tried like heck to stay with them. I was passed by 5 runners in the final mile, but managed to stay within 5-10 seconds of all of them as the final mile was 7:18. My finishing time of 43:03 shouldn’t disappoint me, as my last race 11 months before was a 5k at the exact same pace (21:31).

So what to take away? More mileage, and probably start to do some faster tempo pace, as I’ve done nothing but steady state runs for the past 6 months. Only race on my current radar is Al’s Run, and I want to do well for Team Hillrunner. Oh and btw, I got 2nd in my age group, 25th overall out of 250 or so runners. My 23 year old son ran his 2nd ever 10k, and had a 10 min PR, running 46:52 to win the 20-24 age group. He says it must be in the DNA. Sniff, I think I need a tissue…

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Ever since my last race, things haven’t gone quite to plan. In that race, I had to make a last second maneuver to make a left turn as the lead bike nearly led me off the course. To make that turn, I had to plant my right foot hard. Two days later, I got chased by a kamikaze goose that actually took flight and was aiming right at my head. Once again, I planted my right foot hard to turn around. The next day, my upper ankle/lower shin were hurting. Based on everything I heard of high ankle sprains, this fit the description. This was very frustrating because it was something essentially out of my control, not due to some training mistake I made or anything like that. I wouldn’t even call it a running injury really but it messed with my training for weeks. I only took one day off but my training wasn’t quite normal for about 2-3 weeks.

Upon returning to my training, I never really got back into the flow I had going on before. Things weren’t going badly but they also just felt a little off compared to how I was feeling through March and most of April. Still, I plowed through, got myself back into the best rhythm I could and took the trip to Fond du Lac for the Walleye Run.

On the warmup, I felt much like I did during training. Not bad but not quite right. I continued through the warmup, though, and felt better as it went on. I felt pretty ready to go by the race start.

As the air horn sounded, a good group of runners took off pretty hard. I took some quick steps, then settled into pace. After a couple hundred yards, we make the first turn and I counted runners to get an idea of my position at the turn. 14th place. Pretty quickly after that turn, I passed 5 guys and found myself in the top 10. Over the next 1/4 mile or so, I passed another 5 guys and was now in 4th, with the lead group of 3 already well ahead. I told myself I should stay as close as possible to that group, not because I was going to reel them all back in but because I figured if anyone fell off the back, maybe I could clean up the roadkill. I continued pushing with that idea in mind through the mile mark and most of the way through mile 2. Early in mile 2, I did notice one guy was falling off, which gave me hope that he would fall back toward me. Pretty quickly, though, I realized he was still pulling away from me.

At that point, I realized my race wasn’t with the guys in front of me. It was with the guy who was still just a couple steps behind me. I had a decision to make. Do I push the pace and try to break this open early or do I save something for near the end? I was feeling very warm at this point and I knew I had a return trip with the wind. This was going to create dead air and make for a very warm return trip. I decided to ease off just a bit and save something for near the end. I didn’t want to turn myself into roadkill in that heat. I’d rather make sure I had something left to respond to any moves he might make later on. So I kept pushing but not quite redlining it. Through the middle of the race, I kept an eye on third place just in case he would fade but my real focus was on showing no signs of weakness to the guy right behind me. It was getting very warm out there during mile 3 and I didn’t want this guy to know I was feeling the heat.

As we cruised into mile 4, it was clear that I wasn’t going to finish in the top 3. The battle was to remain in 4th. This guy was hanging tough and, while he was a few steps back, would not let me drop him. I grabbed a cup of water and dumped it on my head but the water wasn’t that cold. It helped some but not a ton. I kept the pace honest but not all out. As we rolled through the 4 mile mark, nothing really changed.

Around a right turn with a little less than a mile to go, I decided it was time to go. At that point, I knew I could make it the rest of the way in and I didn’t want to leave it up to a kick. I started pushing really hard but couldn’t tell for sure if I was building up the gap. Then I noticed that people cheering were starting to leave a bit of a gap of silence after I passed before cheering for the next guy. First, maybe a second. Then 2 or 3 seconds. The gap was growing but I still didn’t feel safe. What if he has a kick? So I kept pushing. Around a hairpin turn with about 200-300 yards left, I knew I had a clear path the rest of the way in so I gave it all I had. I actually ran the next 100 yards so hard it may have been faster than my last 100 yards, just because I ran out of gas a bit down the final straight. But it didn’t matter. I managed to blow the race for 4th open in that last mile just like the race for the top 3 was blown open in the first half mile.

In the end, I finished 4th in 29:05. Hardly the time I was hoping for but the heat and race strategy played a big role in that. I was 43 seconds slower than I was at this race last year but I moved up from 7th place last year. The guy who finished behind me commented on the heat and, in the local newspaper race story, I saw that all the race winners were commenting on the heat. I’m far from the only one it affected out there. I’m not going to complain about my time in this race. I thought top 5 would be a stretch and I did that.

Next up: I don’t know. Taking some down time to recoup and refocus for the fall season.