2011 Run for the Green 5K
I’m back. The last time I crossed the finish line of any race was the Walt Disney World half marathon in January of 2005. I’ve wanted to run. Really. It was all the rage last year in the Ruby community. Yet I resisted, or persisted in my laziness until I read about fellow Cincinnati Coworks members who were preparing for the Heart 5K.
I was a big fan of Jeff Galloway’s training programs since they helped me work my way up from my first 5K in many years to the Disney half marathon. I highly recommend that runners follow Jeff on Twitter especially if you’re struggling to overcome pain while running and his fitness classes on RunKeeper are worth every penny. However it had been well over five years since I’d lifted a sneaker and I’m not getting any younger. Undaunted I loaded up Jeff’s least ambitious “To Finish” 5K training schedule and I set off.
Things were going very well, by my standards, and I was looking forward to running the Heart 5K until a colleague mentioned the Run for the Green 5K. My preparations for the Heart 5K were a couple weeks ahead of the plan laid out by Jeff and I hadn’t completed a trail run since my days in the Marine Corps. So I decided that I’d ante up. As the race day approached I kept my eyes on the forecast. The temperature looked fine but would the rain hold off?
Race day followed several days of heavy rain but the skies were clear and the temperature was in the low 40′s although it was a bit breezy. I was feeling well rested despite only getting about 5 hours of sleep the night before. I had tried to load up on carbohydrates the night before with curry shrimp on a bed of steamed rice since it was Lent and I was not able to enjoy my favorite, beef lasagna. I also woke at 4:30am on race day and drank a protein shake to ensure I was topped off for the 9am start. I was surprised to bump into a friend, Karen Murphy, as I was dropping the race swag off in my truck. I took this as a good omen. Karen has been running for years and we chatted a bit before the colleagues I expected to see arrived.
Dirty Shoes
At the starting line in Landen-Deerfield Park I had on a running jacket over long and short sleeved shirts with running pants over running shorts, and a running cap and gloves. In no time, we were off. As we made our way across the rain soaked field at the start/finish area I started GPS tracking via Runkeeper on my iPhone. However as soon as I under got underway and tucked my iPhone into my running jacket liner I heard the voice prompt in my ear “activity completed.” Apparently, I had touched the “Stop” button just as I locked the screen. So I had to slow my pace, dig my iPhone from my jacket pocket, delete the stopped activity, and start again being careful to lock the screen properly this time. I decided before the race to place my iPhone in a ziplock bag in case I took a tumble on the rain soaked course. This only added to the difficulty of resetting the GPS. When I returned my focus to the run my colleagues were nowhere in site and I would not see them again until the finish line.
I had decide prior to the race since my best pace during training was while running 2.5:1 intervals (2.5 minutes running followed by 1 minute walking) that I would use that interval during the run. I felt very comfortable with the pace despite my already soggy feet when the first walk interval arrived although I disliked runners passing me as I walked. During the third run interval I hit the first hill and I powered through it with little difficulty but by the fifth run interval my pace had become much more irregular and was dictated mostly by the course terrain. Shortly thereafter I made the first creek crossing and I was surprised how good it made my feet feel. The cool water had a rejuvenating effect on my feet as I powered on toward the largest hill climb on the course. The next mile and a half was nothing but muddy switchbacks and short hill climbs and descents in the wooded area behind Landen-Deerfield Park. I totally abandoned intervals and took short walk breaks as I started to feel nauseated. At the 2.7 mile marker I finally broke out of the woods back onto the field and decided to sprint it out, if you could call what I had left in the tank a sprint. There was only one runner ahead of me at this stage and she was too far to catch in the remaining 4/10 mile but I closed the gap as much as my legs allowed.
My pre-race goals was to finish in under 50 minutes. My official time was 51:53. My post-race goal was to finish in under 60 minutes. So I totally crushed that. All in all I found trail running to be challenging but a lot of fun. I can appreciate how different it is from street running and can imagine how it would improve my street runs if I ran trails more often. In the end I resolved to try to complete the 2011 Dirt Days Trail Series. Next up is the Ault Park Switchback. See you there?