It turned out to be a good day all around. First, the weather was almost perfect. Other than some stiff wind just before the 3 mile mark, the temp was ideal and things seemed to fall into place. Fellow competitor and friend, Scott Kukel and I decided to run together as long as possible, maybe even push each other to the end. He was a bit concerned with a bit of a tight calf but just before the start it really wasn't bothering him too much. I was feeling good for the most part, other than some stomach grumblings even though I'd already hit the porta-potties, so Scott and I made another quick pit stop in the trees so I figured things would be all right.
We started the race comfortably and told each other that we didn't want to go out too hard because of the rolling hills in Georgetown before we got back onto the main road leading down to Idaho Springs. We decided about a 12:30 pace for the first 2 miles would be adequate and then from there start picking it up (much like Justin Mock had suggested). I'd run the race two years prior and started way too slowly and didn't want to get caught up in the mass of humanity, so the pace we went out at was nice. Second mile was passed in 12:35 so not far off our plan. After mile two, we were joined by Keith Johnson, a top masters running in the area who has been battling plantar fasciitis lately and not being able to run as well as usual. But his slow running is faster than our fast running so I figured I'd try keeping up with him as long as possible. I found I could keep up without too much issue and we were then joined by a younger guy wearing a long sleeve shirt. Amazing he wasn't overheating. With each down hill I pushed the pace and of course Keith was able to keep up, but this is where Scott started to slow a bit. Turned out Scott's calf was beginning to bother him. So, along we went, up and down, and up and down, until my stomach started cramping up. My fears were starting to come true. I'd never had to take a pit stop during a race before but this time it was inevitable. Around 4.5 miles I spotted a porta-potty and jumped in. Tried my best to finish quickly but even that took at least a minute. Damn!
Oh well, what can you do. I was now behind a bunch of people I'd passed over the past few miles but I was bound and determined to pass them again. And quickly. Fortunately there was a very long stretch of road ahead of me so I could see everyone, including Keith and the other guy way up there. I must have caught a second wind because within less that 3 miles I had caught everyone, including Patty Rogers, who is an incredible woman runner, as well as Keith. It took another mile or so to actually pass him and the other guy but by doing so helped me bring a bunch of other people into sight. One by one I picked them off feeling better and better about my run but also wondering how I would have done had I not stopped (or at least had to). About a mile and half I pulled along side, then past Steven Sellers, a masters runner in the 45-49 age group. I didn't recognized him but knew he was a masters so I figured I had my work cut out for me. I didn't know where I was in relation to the rest of my age group, but based on previous years, my age group figured to be very competive again. I had set my sights on a sub-1:20 today but with that pit stop, it was certainly a lost cause. Or was it?
Steven latched on to my back, running step for step for the next half mile. If I pushed a hill, he did the same, if I crossed the road, he did the same. It was now a real race. It was at the 12 mile mark that I wanted to make him earn his place. Again, not knowing where I was in AG, and who he was, I wanted to be sure to push then entire way to the finish, and hopefully a sub 1:21 effort since I'd hit 40:31 for the mid-way split. I saw some guys up ahead and decided to try to catch them, but they were too far up. Was able to run the last mile in 5:50, which is normally difficult for me to do, even in 5K. Hit the 13 mile marker, made the turn for the finish, and sprinted. And the crowed roared. No, really, it did! Then I saw the time on the clock ahead. 1:19:20, :21, :22... I gave it all I had and ended up officially crossing the finish line in 1:19:31.8, nicely below the 1:20 goal and a nice negative split. Dropped Steven by about 15 seconds too. Of course if I'd not had a bathroom break I could have been in the 1:18:30 range. That is actually a sub-6:00/mile pace. Not bad at all. I'm sure I could have done it. Had quite a few sub-6 minutes miles during the latter half.
Finished and waited for my running buddies to finish. Scott ended up having to take a pit stop as well, and combined with his calf ran a slower race than he'd wanted. I'm sure he would have been sub-1:22, which was what he wanted. David Rothenburger had a pretty decent race, finishing in 1:26, as did Rachel Viele, finishing a little faster than David. Turns out that David was 3rd in his age group of 35-39, and Rachel and I had both won our age groups. Yep, thats right, no one else we had expected had shown up for my age group, making me not only win my AG, but I was the first masters overall, and 14th finisher overall. Jason Saitta had just barely missed beating Jason Delaney, with only 3 seconds separated them.
Went and soaked in the creek for about 2o minutes and then went and ate at a local pizza shop. Great lasagna! And that was the day.
The only negative was a slightly strained inner knee which I'm hoping will go away soon. I don't plan on running tomorrow to give it some rest. Keep your fingers crossed.
Looks like track practice is really starting to pay off.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
2008 Summer Olympics
Well, we're very close to the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics! Regardless of the hype about the pollution and everything thing else, every athlete competing will be competing in the same conditions as his/her competitors so it's a matter of who can tolerate the conditions better. We can only hope for the best weather and temperatures for each and and every event.
Best of luck to the entire athletic contingent representing the good U.S. of A., but in particular the ones closest to us here in the beautiful state of Colorado!
Best of luck to the entire athletic contingent representing the good U.S. of A., but in particular the ones closest to us here in the beautiful state of Colorado!
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Race irritations
OK, I have to vent now. I realize that I'm much older than when I used to run and obviously the average price for races have gone up. And I'm all for raising fees every now and then based on the rising costs associated to putting on races. However, some races have gotten down right rediculous in some aspects.
One race I've always raved about for the past few years has been the Georgetown to Idaho Springs half marathon. Its a rolling downhill starting at 8500' and ending at 7500'. Great run mostly along a frontage road with a bit of trail and the rest road to the finish. And what better way to run a half marathon for only $25.00??? All the proceeds go to the local high school which is even better. However, this year the fee was raised to $30.00. Still, a good value for a longer race. The thing that really irritates me is the late fee they decided to impose this year. Usually there is a late fee of $5.00 or even $10.00, especially for an inexpensive race. But no, not this year! Problem number 1: $20.00 late fee! Problem number 2: Instead of charging a late fee during the standard few days to a week prior to a normal race, this year competitors had to pay the late fee an entire 4 (yes, four) weeks in advance!
What kind of crap is that this??? I know that even with the late fee its still a good value but come on, is $20 really fair and do you have to force people to decide that early? With so many races, a lot of us decide only a week or two before a race. I've come across quite a few other people that are not very happy with the late fee. $5.00 increase for the race is more than fair. $20.00 additional for a late fee which almost doubles the entry fee? Not fair!
Of course it is a BKB run event which is notorious for mismarking miles and has some other irritating facets of their races such as poor organization. There are quite a few races I refuse to run because they put it on. I hope I'm not given a reason to stop running the GT-to-IS half. It is one of only a handful I'd run of theirs, which is a nicely organized event. But that handful is quickly trickling away.
OK, done.
One race I've always raved about for the past few years has been the Georgetown to Idaho Springs half marathon. Its a rolling downhill starting at 8500' and ending at 7500'. Great run mostly along a frontage road with a bit of trail and the rest road to the finish. And what better way to run a half marathon for only $25.00??? All the proceeds go to the local high school which is even better. However, this year the fee was raised to $30.00. Still, a good value for a longer race. The thing that really irritates me is the late fee they decided to impose this year. Usually there is a late fee of $5.00 or even $10.00, especially for an inexpensive race. But no, not this year! Problem number 1: $20.00 late fee! Problem number 2: Instead of charging a late fee during the standard few days to a week prior to a normal race, this year competitors had to pay the late fee an entire 4 (yes, four) weeks in advance!
What kind of crap is that this??? I know that even with the late fee its still a good value but come on, is $20 really fair and do you have to force people to decide that early? With so many races, a lot of us decide only a week or two before a race. I've come across quite a few other people that are not very happy with the late fee. $5.00 increase for the race is more than fair. $20.00 additional for a late fee which almost doubles the entry fee? Not fair!
Of course it is a BKB run event which is notorious for mismarking miles and has some other irritating facets of their races such as poor organization. There are quite a few races I refuse to run because they put it on. I hope I'm not given a reason to stop running the GT-to-IS half. It is one of only a handful I'd run of theirs, which is a nicely organized event. But that handful is quickly trickling away.
OK, done.
Playing catch up
Being so new to this blog I actually forgot I created it! Oh well, I'll keep it short and consolidate the rest of the week. The entire week pretty much flew by. Had the hard 'race' down Lookout. On Wednesday I had a good track session in the 90 degree weather. The longer intervals consisted of 2 800s and 2 1000s interspersed with a bunch of 400s between. First 1000 covered in an easy-ish 3:27, with the first 800 covered in 2:36, followed by another 800 in 2:35, and finally the last 1000 in 3:18. Pretty good for me but I'm looking to go sub 2:30 and 3:15 respectively to be able to bring my mile down.
Thursday was an easy jog around the neighborhood followed by a day off on Friday. Hit up the 'Film on the Rocks' showing of Blade Runner, the director's cut. No narration and a different ending which was cool (not enough people read the blog to spoil it for anyone...). Saturday I ran 2 miles easily with a few sprints here and there.
Sunday was the day I was waiting for. I was registered for the Evergreen Town Race 10K which is a rolling downhill course of which I ran last year. I forgot how much flat and rolling there is in the race which is something to heed since most first-time runners think it's all down hill. Nope. It'll humble you if you don't beware. This year we ended up starting about 10-15 minutes late due to buses that were continuing to shuttle people up. What happened to "last bus at 8:00am" and "miss the bus, miss the race"? Oh well, it's for a great cause - the Alpine Rescue Team who does search and rescue every single day of the year if needed. The problem was that the temperature lately has been really high and this morning was no exception. It was already in the 70s when we got dropped off by the bus. Then its warm up, drop of the drop bag, and then up the hill to the beginning of the race. Quite a bit of the run was in direct sunlight so it was even tougher, and combined with an significant breeze we got down right toasty.
First 5K was decent but nothing blazing because I was already feeling the effects of the heat - 17:40-ish. The final 5K was brutal and I did everything in my power to just gut it out. After all, it was only a 10K so its only a relatively short amount of pain. And since it was a race that is part of the Colorado Runner Magazine series all the contenders for each age group showed up. Richard Paradis, who is a great friend and training fiend was there to blast the 40-49 year age-group away, and that's exactly what he did, finishing in 35:17. The next two followed him fairly closely behind, and me, way back in 4th for the AG and about 50+ seconds behind the third place masters. And just to think, last year I won the AG. But with the heat factor I can't be too disappointed in my performance because I ended up running only 5 seconds slower this year. I'm sure had it been better conditions I would have gone under 36:00 easily.
The 50-59 year bracket had some great AG competitors. Simon Martin, Heath Hibbard, Bob Kessler, and John Victoria, all of which are phenomenal runners. Heath ended up winning the AG, with Bob closely behind. Heath is really racking the series points up.
Scott ran well in the 5K considering he didn't wear a watch because his Garmin didn't charge. Same exact time as last year - 16:59. And our visiting Californian friend, Chuck did pretty well too. The winning time for the 5K however was 14:44 by a 26 year old Kenyan named Josaphat Keino (no, no relation to Kip). A few days ago he was second in the Pearl Street Mile with a 4:18.
Enough for now... going to take an ice bath. Peace out!
Thursday was an easy jog around the neighborhood followed by a day off on Friday. Hit up the 'Film on the Rocks' showing of Blade Runner, the director's cut. No narration and a different ending which was cool (not enough people read the blog to spoil it for anyone...). Saturday I ran 2 miles easily with a few sprints here and there.
Sunday was the day I was waiting for. I was registered for the Evergreen Town Race 10K which is a rolling downhill course of which I ran last year. I forgot how much flat and rolling there is in the race which is something to heed since most first-time runners think it's all down hill. Nope. It'll humble you if you don't beware. This year we ended up starting about 10-15 minutes late due to buses that were continuing to shuttle people up. What happened to "last bus at 8:00am" and "miss the bus, miss the race"? Oh well, it's for a great cause - the Alpine Rescue Team who does search and rescue every single day of the year if needed. The problem was that the temperature lately has been really high and this morning was no exception. It was already in the 70s when we got dropped off by the bus. Then its warm up, drop of the drop bag, and then up the hill to the beginning of the race. Quite a bit of the run was in direct sunlight so it was even tougher, and combined with an significant breeze we got down right toasty.
First 5K was decent but nothing blazing because I was already feeling the effects of the heat - 17:40-ish. The final 5K was brutal and I did everything in my power to just gut it out. After all, it was only a 10K so its only a relatively short amount of pain. And since it was a race that is part of the Colorado Runner Magazine series all the contenders for each age group showed up. Richard Paradis, who is a great friend and training fiend was there to blast the 40-49 year age-group away, and that's exactly what he did, finishing in 35:17. The next two followed him fairly closely behind, and me, way back in 4th for the AG and about 50+ seconds behind the third place masters. And just to think, last year I won the AG. But with the heat factor I can't be too disappointed in my performance because I ended up running only 5 seconds slower this year. I'm sure had it been better conditions I would have gone under 36:00 easily.
The 50-59 year bracket had some great AG competitors. Simon Martin, Heath Hibbard, Bob Kessler, and John Victoria, all of which are phenomenal runners. Heath ended up winning the AG, with Bob closely behind. Heath is really racking the series points up.
Scott ran well in the 5K considering he didn't wear a watch because his Garmin didn't charge. Same exact time as last year - 16:59. And our visiting Californian friend, Chuck did pretty well too. The winning time for the 5K however was 14:44 by a 26 year old Kenyan named Josaphat Keino (no, no relation to Kip). A few days ago he was second in the Pearl Street Mile with a 4:18.
Enough for now... going to take an ice bath. Peace out!
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