Outrunning Autism 5K Race Report

June 3, 2017

Goal: 19:00. Dream goal: 18:30. Minimum goal: 20:00.

I haven't raced anything in a long time, and I'm certainly not getting any younger, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Based on my estimated VDOT of 54, Daniels says 18:40, but that assumes perfect training and peaking, so I thought 19:00 may be appropriate. Anyway, I decided to go out by feel, but not faster than 6:00 for the first mile.

The race start was 9:15, and it was large enough to have a packet pickup the day before, but I just honestly forgot about it, and so I had to arrive early enough to factor in the lost time on packet pickup. Additionally, parking was almost a mile from start, so I had to go back and forth after picking up the packet. I arrived before 8:00, and did everything usual: I finished my 2-mile warmup about 15-20 minutes before start. It was already quite hot and I was sweating quite a bit. I don't know if this was a factor.

The race was in full sun, and according to Wunderground, it was 75 degrees at start and 80 at finish time. But I think the asphalt road/concrete path and full sun environment increased the temperature even further. Many people complained about being hot out there. It probably did affect me, but I was acclimated, and a 5K is less than 20 minutes, so I don't think it had too much effect.

The start was a bit hectic, because people lined up incorrectly. I probably should have gone to the front, but there were a few college track runners up there, and I thought I should be more like in the third line. As a consequence, I had to zig-zag around people for the first half mile. I probably should have just taken a few seconds loss there, but I was too aggravated... so I wasted a bunch of energy and some time.

After that I settled into a fast, but sustainable pace (or so I thought). I was trying to run with other people to help me pace. My GPS showed that my start was too fast, but after about 1/2 mile, I was running a pace of just over 6 min/mile.

Mile 1: 6:05

Looks good. The course was very flat, but there were two bridges and an underpass at the halfway point. We ran across the first bridge in mile 1. After the mile marker, we ran through a large field. The sun came down hard, and I started to feel it. We reached an aid station at the halfway point. I should have grabbed a water to pour it over my head, but by the time I thought about it, it was too late. We went through the underpass (this was below a bridge), and when we came back up the other side, the hurt started. "That's normal", I told myself. "Less than 10 minutes left." My pace slowed, but I didn't feel it, and nobody passed me. In fact I passed a few people, including an older lady, who was running by me until now, and who had a great group of spectators: she got a cheer at every aid station from a bunch a younger girls, who looked like students. She slowed a bit just before the second mile marker, so I passed her. (According to the results, she is 47 and she ran 19:37.)

Mile 2: 6:13

That's OK, as long as I can kill the last mile. We ran across the bridge again, full sun, concrete, and I was hurting bad. This is the point when you have to talk yourself into not stopping. I just wish I had a bit more mental energy. There was a 4 km sign when we got back to the big oval lawn that we had to circle, and it demoralized me a bit. My watch was showing something like 15:45, so I knew that my time would be well over 19:00 minutes, and if I fall apart, I might even go outside of 20 minutes. I probably could have pushed a bit more, but I was afraid of a total meltdown. I also knew I was in 10th place, so losing that would have been disappointing, too.

Mile 3: 6:21

Once the finish line was within 300 yards, I knew I could push a bit harder, and I passed one guy in front of me.

Last portion: 49 seconds.

Total time: 19:28, 9th overall.

I actually didn't get an official time for some reason. Unfortunately the race was timed by the worst timing company in Louisville, called Head First Performance. It is not their first screw-up, and if I knew they were timing this, I might not have signed up at all. In any case, I'm totally missing from their finish list. I paid the registration (with late fee), I have my number and timing chip, and I surely crossed the start/finish mat both ways... The organizer lady was nice, and they called me back and announced that a mistake was made and they gave me a 2nd age group award just based on the time I told them. So I guess they did what they could. But I don't show up on the list of finishers and I don't have an official time. My own estimate is based on the guy I beat on the finish line, whose time was 19:28.8. Of course this is chip time, but it also took me a few seconds to cross the start line, so this is my best guess. The AG 2nd place is almost surely correct, because the 1st ran 19:23, and the 3rd (who was also awarded 2nd place by mistake) ran 20:32.

I was disappointed with the poor time, but maybe it's OK. I should run more 5Ks to have a correct picture. This time would indicate a 51-52 VDOT which may be low, but maybe not too low... I only started to do any kind of workout 3 weeks ago. One thing to consider is to scale back my workouts to 53 VDOT, because 54 may be too high after all. I do hope I can get back to 55 eventually, because that seems necessary to run sub-3 hours in the hilly Bowling Green.

I stayed in the park until noon, because I ran a 5-mile lap with Jim Ball, who did an extreme version of this run: after he finished the 5K he went on to run for 24 hours, covering about 100 miles. It was very slow, of course, but it was a fine cooldown. I finished the day with over 10 miles, so I'm not sure how much I want to run today. I'll play it by ear.