Greg's Running Blog

I have started running on 1/12/10 as my choice of cardio exercise to replace my trusty hour of elliptical in front of  the TV. I have been running very diligently since then and I have seen constant improvements in my training by faster and faster paces for the same effort. But the real test comes when you can compare apples to apples, or race times to race times. I ran my first 5K on 1/30/10 and finished it in 24:04. It was a great achievement and I was very pleased with my time. I have averaged 7:44 minute/miles that race. Last Saturday I ran another 5K race out at the historical Fort Worth Stockyards and I smoked it!

I was going in with hopes of getting under 22:00 minutes which was probably a very easy goal considering I just had a 30 minute 7:03/mile tempo run on Thursday night. Unlike my last 5K which took place in freezing 24 degree weather and high winds, today’s race weather was perfect. It was a nice 50 degree morning with 5mph winds. It was sunny and georgeous.

I showed up around 7:30, race start time was 8:30. I warmed up with an easy 10 minute run which was the slowest I had run in a long time yet my heart rate was as high as it usually is during my normal slow runs. I was anxious, no doubt. I picked up my timing chip strapped it on my new obnoxious red Brooks T6 Racer that I bought a couple days ago for the race and went to the start line.

At the Cowtown 10K I made the mistake of starting from the back of the pack which probably cost me some time at the beginning of the race. While it’s a lot more fun to pass people than getting pased I wasn’t going to take that route this time around. It turned out to be a good idea to line up in the front.

The race did have chip timing but it wasn’t true chip timing. The start was a gun start with the finish being chip timed. It meant if you started from the back of the pack you really ended up losing some quality time as ther was no offset applied to your time and your net time was counting from gun time. I lined up in the first row, all proud and scared at the same time thinking to my self “What the hell am I doing in the first row?”

It was a small race, a combined 5K and 10K start with about 400 runners, split 50-50 between 5K and 10K. Both courses were out and back races the only difference was that the halfway point for the 10K was another 1.6 miles down the trail.

While waiting for the airhorn there was a young boy standing next to me in the front row with his Garmin 305 on his arm, getting ready to push the button. The race director came up and asked his dad behind him if he was fast enough to go from there, they didn’t want him to get trampled. His dad assured the director that he was fast enough. I asked the kid what his goal was and he said he’s planning on running around 8:40 min/mile. I was pretty impressed, he must have been 8 or 9. He just looked so darn cute standing there in the front with his watch ready to go with a min/mile pace set in his mind. It’s not often you see something like that.

At 8:30 the airhorn sounded and off we went. The first 0.2 miles were on cobblestone at the historical Stockyards then we got on some street to run to the Trinity trail which is a long biking/running trail running along the Trinity river. As we got on the trail there was a large downhill with a small bridge and a smaller uphill on the other side. Then the course was flat for the rest of the way until the turning point and then the repeat back, except the finish was not at the exact same spot as the start which saved us one small section of downhill running at the end.

While in the starting straightaway I glanced at my watch and I was looking at a 4:35 min/mile pace. I was thinking “hell there is no way I should be running this fast!” so I slowed it down with a dozen people in front of me pulling away. I slowed down but it wasn’t until the 0.4 mile marker that I really got into my race pace up until then I was running way too fast.

I was trying to keep up with the leading group but they were really fast and I figured there is really no point in me trying to run their race, I should be trying to run my race.

Then a really interesting thing happened at the turnaround. As I was approaching the big orange cones in the middle of the trail which was the clear turning point for the 5K runners, not one person in front of me took the turn. They all kept on running. They were all racing the 10K! And they were going faster than me. The 10K race was loaded with good runners and they were really booking it. This was the first year that this event has added a 10K race so most of the better runners went with that one instead of the 5K.

This left me in the lead at the turnaround which felt really weird and strenuous. The great thing about an out and back course is that you know exactly where you are and how much further you need to go. The other good thing is that as you’re running by the slower runners they cheer you on as you pass them, especially if you’re the leader at this point. One set of runners yelled at me “quit showing off!” and another said “hurry, they’re right on your heels”

The sucky part of an out and back course is that some of the slower runners are pretty ignorant and they don’t realize that there might be runners coming at them and they don’t move over until the very last moment when they finally decide to look up from fiddling with their iPods.

I still think the benefits outweigh the issue with runners who aren’t prepared for your return, maybe if I wasn’t the leader at this point it would have been a non-issue.

The person telling me about the 2nd place runner being on my heels wasn’t lying. By the time we got back to the end of the trail I was getting very tired. Mind you that’s what a 6:08 min/mile will do to you when you hardly ever run that fast in training.

As I approached the drop by the bridge and I had to climb the other side I didn’t feel like I could hold onto the lead. I could hear the other runner approaching and I eventually threw in the towel told him “I can’t keep it up, go ahead” and off he went. after the race he said he saw that my pace and cadence was detiriorating over the hill and that is when he felt he could take me. Boy, was he right.

I ran a 6:08 pace for the first two miles and a 6:37 for the last half a mile. Talk about positive split! But it didn’t matter, I still managed to finish the race while holding onto second place in 19:29 for a 6:17 min/mile overall average. Needless to say I’m super psyched about it! I got first place in my age group, the winner was a 50 years old guy who races 5Ks exclusively and has been for a long long time.

After the race was over I stuck around waiting for the award ceremony to get my age group winner’s medal. While waiting I cheered on the other finishers at the finish line and made some new friends with fellow runners. All in all it was a great race with some great running and I could not be happier with the result.