IBM Employee Appreciation Day 5K, October 10, 2009

The anniversary of the race that started it all!  It was this very race last year that effectively kick started this entire odyssey and so I was really looking forward to this year’s race.  I was even willing to forgo my long run to do this race.  Of course, that’s where my first challenge really kicked in.  Colleen had hoped we’d run together, as a family.  I could have, but I also knew she’d run at a pace that would not really provide me enough of a challenge to get around the missing long run and I’d guilt myself into going to the gym to run 11 miles anyway.  So, I managed to convince her that allowing me to leave her to her own race was in her best interest in the long run and so we lined up in different portions of the start.

This race, so I am told, is handled more like what I should expect from the half marathon.  They ask (not heavily enforced of course) that you align your starting position with the times posted that you believe you can finish.  Last year, I’d put myself into the section that was 25 to 30 minutes.  This year, knowing I’d finished last year in 22:50, I put myself in the 22-25 minutes section.  Now, my target was actually below 22, which should have allowed me to get into the very front group, but I didn’t want to seem overconfident and there really weren’t many runners between me and the starting line anyway.

This marked my first road race where I didn’t wear headphones.  I still don’t really like the ones I’m using right now, but they’re the ones I’ve got.  Since this race promised to be really short anyway, I didn’t much care if I had music or not, and it was just one less thing to have to bother with on the course.  My goal was to haul as much ass as my legs would stand.  The start of the race hit and I was off.  The pace seemed blistering, and when I hit the first mile, it turned out I was right.  6:40!!!  I can’t say I have actually run a full mile at 6:40 since I started running in competitions, but I was doing reasonably well and wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

The course turns around at roughly 1.5 miles, though there’s no real split timer there to let you know how you’re doing.  I got to the 2 mile mark and the time was called out as 12:55!  That meant I’d run the second mile in 6:15!  Boy was I on fire!  Because of the loop, I knew there were 15 runners in front of me.  Finishing 16th overall would not have disappointed me in the least.  As I was trying to really see if I could do a kick, I sped up slightly going into this last 1.1 miles.  I passed a couple of runners and was suddenly in the top 10!  That’s when it hit!

I’m a chronic rhinitis sufferer.  I wake up most mornings, even when I’m healthy with a head full from sleeping in a prone position.  Today was no different from most days, except that I was running at an accelerated pace.  Suddenly, I was struggling to breathe and started coughing trying to bring up something stuck in my throat.  It got so bad I had no choice but to stop running and retch.  I didn’t actually vomit, but I did dry heave several times wasting precious seconds until I brought up a pretty good hunk of phlegm and then started running again.  Three runners had passed me while I was retching and I knew catching them would be out of the question.  No top 10 finish for me this time!

Got to where I could read the timer clock and saw I still had a shot to finish under 22.  That was really my only goal for this race so I pushed the last two hundred yards and crossed in 21:40!  I’d still managed 13th overall and that was out of 197 runners being officially timed.  Not too shabby.  Of course, this race (and for all I know many 5K) are flush with runners in the 40-49 age range that are quite fit.  Despite my time, I still was 5th in my age group and the 6th fastest man in the 40-49 age range.  The fastest finished the race second.  So, I can only wonder with some mild regret what could have been if I’d been able to push through without stopping to retch.  Could I have finished under 21?  Maybe.  I don’t think I was stopped long enough to have finished under 20.  I’m not even honestly sure if I had stopped more than 40 seconds, so under 21 might not have happened.

I did realize that I could kick, I just had to convince myself to do so.  I’m not sure if the last mile is the place to start the kick, but right now it’s the easiest marker for me to try.  It also aligns with the tweak I made in my training plan which is to run the last mile at least mildly faster than the rest.  We’ll see how that applies to a long run when I run the next one of those.  Only three weeks until the half marathon and I think I’ve really discovered what I am as an endurance runner.  Not too shabby for only 13 months in active competition.

Cheers!