15K Race Report

Sorry this is a bit late and perhaps a bit boring....

Genine and I meet Steve, Amy and Dave at the mall parking lot at 7:30AM. Steve drives us into the city. We find street parking rather quickly and easily. We walk over to the race site and we catch up with Ruth. Ruth has her DV camera with her, I’ve never seen myself run, should be interesting to see.
Ruth asked us what she thought our results would be. I told her 1:10:00, oddly I felt anything slower than that was going to be disappointing. Keep in mind I haven’t a clue how hilly Central Park is or isn’t.
We waited until the last moment to get our warm-up run in. My back was feeling a bit tweaked on the left side and when I tried to get warmed up I had some odd leg pains as well. (left side). Hmmmm. Maybe I’ll have to change plans. We get back into the corral and I’ve basically decided that I’ll just go by comfort level.
The start of the run is tight, people are often running in pods with their friends. I run past a bit of drama just a couple minutes into the race. This woman jumps over the barrier off of the course and spikes her GU packet into the ground, her boyfriend/husband standing behind her still on the course. She’s shouting at him “Forget it! Let’s Go! NOW!!”…. Oh man, so glad I’m not that guy.
I finally spot a “path” to get around some of the crowd. So I start weaving my way ahead and I’m finally at a quicker pace that I’m feeling comfortable with.
Mile markers?? Haven’t seen any. They typically mark these races really well. I figure I was probably so focused on trying to get out of the crowds and not tripping as I’m doing this that I’ve just missed them. I think the first maker I noticed was mile 3 and I hit the lap counter on my watch so I could check the splits later.
I’m definitely feeling good, HR seems to have locked in at about 180 and it’s very comfortable. I seem to be moving through the pack any time there is an incline. I guess all the Saturday hill runs this winter are going to pay off.
I think I grabbed water at 3 water stops all before mile 5. Honestly I didn’t get much of a drink from any of them but it was something. After that I decided to steer clear of the water table just because of the random speeds people were moving around them. I ate the GU somewhere around mile 4-5.
Maybe I should have been grabbing more water along the way. Because somewhere close to mile 8. My left calf decided to spasm every single step. Because of the cramp, I don’t feel that I should try to push any harder than I already am. Ah well.
I reached mile 8 at 1 hour and 2 seconds, so I knew if I held pace I should beat my 1:10:00 goal. So I kept at it and crossed the finish at 1:09:00 Clock Time. 1:08:51 Chip Time.
Turn in my chip, Genine finds me and congratulates me, she points to where she and Ruth are setup and she goes back to work with the camera. I needed to keep moving, so I jogged around for a bit before joining them.
We cheer as Steve, Amy and Dave finish, and then it’s time to move our focus to lunch. Ruth leads the way and we end up at a place called Josie’s. The chocolate chip pancakes were fantastic.
We hop back into the van and head for NJ. On the way home, we find out that it’s Amy’s birthday. I don’t care how old you are, I think that running a 15K is a solid way to start off your year.

I’m glad I ran this race. I now feel like that pace/effort is possible for the Olympic distance triathlons. I guess the trick is to learn how to pace my biking so that my legs will be ready to run. I’ve got a few bricks in mind to work on that.
I’ll admit I’m definitely disappointed in the cramping. This is such a tough thing to “practice” for. Is it because I don’t train at this effort enough? Or is it a nutrition thing? I guess I’ll make an effort to improve both and hope for the best.

To end on a positive note. 326th out of 2339 overall. 69 of 240 Age Group. I like it!