After all of the excitement of the day before the race, I was thinking that the run itself would be pretty mundane. Sure, I expected to be tired at the end, but it was just a run. How much amusement could there possibly in that?
Well, they group the runners by expected finish time. If you think about it, that makes sense, because it helps to avoid bottlenecks, and overly large crowds. However, they call those groups "corrals." Yup, they use the same word that is usually used when discussing livestock. Funnily enough, the word is actually fitting. Everyone in the same corral stands in a designated area, crowded around an entrance to the actual course. As soon as that door opens, everyone rushes towards it to start their run. Picture feeding time at the barn, and you'll have a rough idea of how the process goes down.
Anyhow, when I signed up a few months ago, I was still planning on running a 12-minute mile. What's more, I added a cushion to account for possible injuries, cramps, or just plain running slowly. All in all, this meant that I was slotted in the "way the heck back there" corral. I figured I'd just start there, and if I passed people along the way, I passed people. However, a friend of mine was convinced this was a bad idea, and she insisted that I "be a bad boy" by moving up to one of the earlier corrals. The race instructions specifically said not to do this, but after enough goading, I relented. I realized that my other friend was planning on running about the same pace as I was, so I tagged along with him. However, that meant that I had to stand in the wrong corral, looking inconspicuous until the door opened. People noticed I was in the wrong place, but most of them kept their dirty looks to themselves (I'd like to think that I out-ran the ones that did give me dirty looks).
My friend is a more experienced runner than I am, so I suspect that he let me set the pace (more on this later). Of course, it was my first run, so I had some extra adrenaline pumping through my blood. I hear it's pretty common for newbie runners to start out fast, and I was no different. By about the 5k mark, we were running about 30 seconds faster than our intended pace. I actually remember running by that marker, seeing the time, and miscalculating the pace. I thought we were just slightly ahead of the pace, but alas, my trusty math skills failed me.
So, I pushed the tempo up a little bit. I was counting on slowing down eventually, so I wanted the extra cushion to make up for the later miles. To be honest, it was probably more of an instinctive decision than anything else. The thought "I must go faster" did not cross my mind, but I did end up running a little bit faster.
By about mile 7, I was waiting for the slowdown to hit me. My legs were still holding up well, but the rational part of my brain figured fatigue was bound to set in (that part of my brain can be a pain sometimes). Throughout all this, though, my friend was right beside me, stride for stride. And he showed no indication of slowing down either. Well, I didn't want to be the one to falter and get ditched. This time, I did make a conscious effort to maintain my speed. My "maintain speed" skills were no better than my math skills on this day, though. I actually sped up. It didn't feel like I was running faster, I can assure you. But the splits don't lie, and they say that we ran faster for this portion of the race than for previous portions.
This brings us to roughly mile 11. There was no way in hell I was slowing down at this point. We had just passed the pace team that was shooting for a 2 hour finish, and I didn't want that effort to go to waste. Mind you, we had passed roughly 6 people that had "2 hours" on their back, all at various stages along the run. Clearly, not everyone on the pace team was keeping up their end of the bargain. But this time, there were at least a couple of people with the "2 hour" sign on their back, AND they were carrying the big picket sign thing that said 2 hours. That's about as official as you're going to get, so I knew for sure we were at least running at that pace.
We kept running, and the surroundings started looking familiar; we were in the home stretch. With maybe a third of a mile left, we came around one last bend. Suddenly, my friend takes off, and yells something along the lines of "push for a strong finish." When I say he took off, I mean he started sprinting. Where in the hell did this energy come from? He was sandbagging this whole time. Dammit. So, I upped my pace, too. I, however, did not have nearly as much left in the tank as he did. Translation: he beat me by 14 seconds. Dammit.
Funnily enough, this was the exact same tactic I had proposed to someone who was engaged in a little bit of pre-run trash talking. That guy had run a lot slower than his competition in a previous race, so I suggested a little payback. Little did I know that the universe was listening at the time. Karma's a punk sometimes.
Regardless, it wasn't a bad time, by any means. My time for each mile was over a minute better than I expected, and I had finished in under 2 hours. Strangely, every split was faster than the one before, meaning that not only did we not slow down (on the whole), we progressively sped up. However, I did learn a couple of valuable lessons: 1. I make for a horrible pace-setter, and 2. I need slower friends for the sake of my pride.
Well, they group the runners by expected finish time. If you think about it, that makes sense, because it helps to avoid bottlenecks, and overly large crowds. However, they call those groups "corrals." Yup, they use the same word that is usually used when discussing livestock. Funnily enough, the word is actually fitting. Everyone in the same corral stands in a designated area, crowded around an entrance to the actual course. As soon as that door opens, everyone rushes towards it to start their run. Picture feeding time at the barn, and you'll have a rough idea of how the process goes down.
Anyhow, when I signed up a few months ago, I was still planning on running a 12-minute mile. What's more, I added a cushion to account for possible injuries, cramps, or just plain running slowly. All in all, this meant that I was slotted in the "way the heck back there" corral. I figured I'd just start there, and if I passed people along the way, I passed people. However, a friend of mine was convinced this was a bad idea, and she insisted that I "be a bad boy" by moving up to one of the earlier corrals. The race instructions specifically said not to do this, but after enough goading, I relented. I realized that my other friend was planning on running about the same pace as I was, so I tagged along with him. However, that meant that I had to stand in the wrong corral, looking inconspicuous until the door opened. People noticed I was in the wrong place, but most of them kept their dirty looks to themselves (I'd like to think that I out-ran the ones that did give me dirty looks).
My friend is a more experienced runner than I am, so I suspect that he let me set the pace (more on this later). Of course, it was my first run, so I had some extra adrenaline pumping through my blood. I hear it's pretty common for newbie runners to start out fast, and I was no different. By about the 5k mark, we were running about 30 seconds faster than our intended pace. I actually remember running by that marker, seeing the time, and miscalculating the pace. I thought we were just slightly ahead of the pace, but alas, my trusty math skills failed me.
So, I pushed the tempo up a little bit. I was counting on slowing down eventually, so I wanted the extra cushion to make up for the later miles. To be honest, it was probably more of an instinctive decision than anything else. The thought "I must go faster" did not cross my mind, but I did end up running a little bit faster.
By about mile 7, I was waiting for the slowdown to hit me. My legs were still holding up well, but the rational part of my brain figured fatigue was bound to set in (that part of my brain can be a pain sometimes). Throughout all this, though, my friend was right beside me, stride for stride. And he showed no indication of slowing down either. Well, I didn't want to be the one to falter and get ditched. This time, I did make a conscious effort to maintain my speed. My "maintain speed" skills were no better than my math skills on this day, though. I actually sped up. It didn't feel like I was running faster, I can assure you. But the splits don't lie, and they say that we ran faster for this portion of the race than for previous portions.
This brings us to roughly mile 11. There was no way in hell I was slowing down at this point. We had just passed the pace team that was shooting for a 2 hour finish, and I didn't want that effort to go to waste. Mind you, we had passed roughly 6 people that had "2 hours" on their back, all at various stages along the run. Clearly, not everyone on the pace team was keeping up their end of the bargain. But this time, there were at least a couple of people with the "2 hour" sign on their back, AND they were carrying the big picket sign thing that said 2 hours. That's about as official as you're going to get, so I knew for sure we were at least running at that pace.
We kept running, and the surroundings started looking familiar; we were in the home stretch. With maybe a third of a mile left, we came around one last bend. Suddenly, my friend takes off, and yells something along the lines of "push for a strong finish." When I say he took off, I mean he started sprinting. Where in the hell did this energy come from? He was sandbagging this whole time. Dammit. So, I upped my pace, too. I, however, did not have nearly as much left in the tank as he did. Translation: he beat me by 14 seconds. Dammit.
Funnily enough, this was the exact same tactic I had proposed to someone who was engaged in a little bit of pre-run trash talking. That guy had run a lot slower than his competition in a previous race, so I suggested a little payback. Little did I know that the universe was listening at the time. Karma's a punk sometimes.
Regardless, it wasn't a bad time, by any means. My time for each mile was over a minute better than I expected, and I had finished in under 2 hours. Strangely, every split was faster than the one before, meaning that not only did we not slow down (on the whole), we progressively sped up. However, I did learn a couple of valuable lessons: 1. I make for a horrible pace-setter, and 2. I need slower friends for the sake of my pride.
I said "Book it!" and was a man of my word.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, you got me back in Vegas. Beat me by a quarter-mile there or something.
1. I'm going to be slower, even in a measly 5k.
ReplyDelete2. I think E' could have just left it "and was a man."
@<>..<>: (man, that's hard to type) I half expected you to pull away at Vegas. Wasn't exactly my best race.
ReplyDelete@Miche:
1. See, this is why I'm friends with you. =p From what I hear, though, you've been steadily upping the mileage. Distance first, then speed.
2. Let's not give other people ideas for how to mess with me, huh?
I used to use that face everywhere in middle/high school, so I got used to it ^_^ (all with your right hand!)
ReplyDeleteAnd, yeah, Vegas, apparently sub-optimal gear trumps clubbing with no sleep. Your training method wins!