Just signed up to a 5K for this Saturday. I was going to throw in a hard 5k effort anyways to see where I am fitness wise so might as well make this official.

As is the case with most trail runs, I expect the course to be hilly but don’t know with certainty since the site doesn’t have a course profile.

Need to find more races to get as much race experience as I can. Thinking of doing a sprint sometime in June, maybe in May if my swimming shapes up.

At 140 HR my pace is about 10:20/mile. Early January, at 140 HR my pace was around 9:15/mile. It’s hard to say whether or not I’ll be ready to run the 4 miler at the end of this month.

This time around, I’m crossing my T’s and dotting my I’s doing everything by the book. Proper warm-up, cool down, stretch before and after.

Injury is not an option if I want to be the best triathlete in the world! Don’t take me seriously…

Running from Runners

In a perfect world, I would have loved to get guaranteed entrance via an impressive qualifying time but I just haven’t had the opportunities in my short running career. Instead, I applied for a lottery and was accepted to race in the NYC Half Marathon coming up in March. I think this is the first time I’ve ever won something and am excited about it (only athletes get excited about race admittance).

The only qualm I have with March 21st is it’s exactly the day after the Prospect Park Duathlon. It’s a tough call and too early for me to know if I should race back-to-back.

I still have gaps in my race schedule and plan to keep it that way. I plan on traveling and spending as much time in the Berkshires as possible (my training grounds and escape from city noise).

< enter cliche overplayed music now >

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqz47TtMTyk

About the Race

On October 24th, 2009, twenty four cities around the world took part in a 10k length race organized by Nike. The day the world runs.

For many, it was just a regular training day for the NYC Marathon on Nov 1st, but for me it was my first race.

5:30 AM

Woke up and thought who in their right mind wants to get up so early to run. Back to sleep.

5:40 AM

So I wake up and drank a glass of chocolate milk, water with heed, ate half a sesame bagel with scallion cream cheese, and scarfed down a banana. Didn’t have much of an appetite due to nerves. It wasn’t nervous nerves, just anxious to start racing. I picked up my friend and was surprised to find that Prospect Park is only 20 minutes away from me.

7:15 AM

Finally found a parking spot conveniently close to the finish line. Saw the starting line and literally thousands of people were there lined up in the 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 minute starting zones. I usually run at 9:30 / mile but decided to go in the 8 minute zone as I knew my pace would be faster in a race situation.

7:45 AM

By now I’m waiting to run and glad they allowed us to use our ipods and nike+ gear so I can see how accurate the mileage and pace counter is. I was fully stretched and ready to go. Every minute waiting felt like ten and testing my patience. Looking beside me I noticed there were A LOT of people that came by themselves without knowing anyone in the race. It rained the night prior, roads were wet with leaves so I definitely had to be careful on where I stepped. Luckily for us, it drizzled for about a minute and stopped raining. The conditions were perfect at around 60 degrees.

8:00 AM

The horn sounds off and we’re off! A few hundred yards up the road on the right I spot my girlfriend with a homemade sign “GoOOoo Andy! You the mandy!” I got a good laugh as well as my running mates and began to focus on my breathing. I was pacing outside of my comfort zone at 7 mins/mile and we haven’t even reached the one mile marker. I slowed my pace to 8 mins and crossed the 2 mile marker feeling very fatigued. My knees were weak and felt my chest pounding hard. After the short climb, I felt incredible. It was probably the endorphins being released in my body but my legs felt numb and was breathing very comfortably. I decided to take advantage and increased my pace during mile marker 3 & 4. At this point I’ve lost my friend. I didn’t know if he was ahead or behind, but the original plan was for me to pace with him since he runs at a steady 8 mins/mile. That’s why you should never make plans because they never stick! Forget that idea…

While the run was taking place I took in the scenery and landscape of Prospect Park considering I’ll be back in two weeks to compete in my first duathlon. It’s about half the size and the hills were no where near Central Park’s harlem hill. Also, surprisingly I didn’t see many supporters on the side of the road considering how many people raced that morning. I did see one guy with a sign yelling “GO RACHAEL!”. I refrained from telling him that his sign was upside down but still made out the words — “Congratulation Rachael Good Luck!” Yea good luck Rachael in figuring out what that sign says…

I continued on and decided to forgo all the water stations. It was only 6 miles and didn’t think it was worth losing a few seconds over. In hindsight it would’ve been good to have experience in grabbing water “on the go” as I saw several runners attempting to grab a cup only to spill the other ten cups next to it. I guess there is skill needed to grab water.

I also noticed that while I was pacing around 8 minutes, I wasn’t passing anyone. Almost everyone at this point was pacing identically and made me re-think if I was going too slow. It wasn’t what I had in mind leading up to this day. I dreamed I would be dropping runners left and right, smiling and not showing any signs of atrophy. Back to reality, it was exactly the opposite.

At mile marker 5 there was a clock that said “43:35″. Only 1.2 more miles to go and in my mind I thought I could easily achieve my goal of completing this race in 55 minutes. I even re-considered my goal and thought perhaps 50 minutes was possible if I kicked it into another gear.

So I BAM, kicked it up a notch like Emeril Lagasse and decide to run as fast as possible in the last mile and boy was this a mistake. I started getting pains below my right rib cage and stopped to walk for a good 15 seconds before recovering enough to run. I was panting, coughing, and honestly felt like throwing up. Seems like other runners beside me had the same idea as the grunting was getting louder and our form was getting sloppy. OhhHH, AHHH, heee, huuu, haaaa. Block out the images and you’d think we’re starring in a mega orgy fest called Runners Gone Wild.

I probably only had half a mile to go at this point and was trying to think of anything to motivate me to continue. “Come on even Oprah ran a full marathon”, “I don’t want to look like a pansy in front of my girlfriend”. I tuned in to Rocky’s “getting stronger” anthem but felt too corny so I switched it to bush’s “machine head”. Perfect. I crossed the finish line at 52:15 and looked at my ipod to see it took me 52:07. Whatever, I’ll take it

What I’ve learned

• Don’t start so fast and warm up before you run.
• Don’t wear arm warmers unless you know for certain it will remain cold.
• Don’t eat a rib eye sandwich while mixing beer and wine the night prior. It does wonders for your stomach.
• Prospect park looks just like central park, in fact it’s the same designer.
• Still don’t know what caused the pain below my right rib cage.

Race Results

566th/ 3,464 overall nyc (in upper 20th percentile)
439th male

You can look up your result here.

Finishing thoughts

Nike did an amazing job in organizing the event. Everything from the sign-up, packet pickup, lineup, refreshments, to after race activities were great. Considering the event only costed me $20 and got a dri-fit shirt was worth it alone.  I’m very pleased and happy with my results considering this was my first 10k and had only 35 miles of running training preparation. During training I would run 6 miles in one hour flat so I’ve set a goal of completing 6.2 miles in 55 minutes. I ended up officially finishing in 52 minutes 15 seconds! It was a great experience and am so looking forward to future races.

Congratulations to all that finished (especially the winners) and hope we all continue to train towards our goals. Thanks also to my best and only supporter out there, my woman Katie.

[View with PicLens]

Leave a comment if you’re going, maybe we could run together? I’m running at about 10:00/mile pace.

Details and registration page can be found here: http://inside.nike.com/blogs/nikerunning_humanrace-en_CA/?tags=race_day