Early March can be a risky time of year to have a morning race, but the weather was fabulous. Shannon and I both ran the race (she did get a PR by about a minute and a half). I tried to insert myself at the starting line within a few rows of the front, though I still found myself behind Cosmo and a ten year old. The race starts with the firing of the cannon named George Q. and we took off. I hit my first roadblock about 20 feet into the race, in the form of a photographer standing right in the middle of everything taking pictures. I nearly plowed in to him. Not a very smart place to stand at the start of a race, because no one beyond the front row of people can see more than 5 feet in front of them. From LaVell Edwards Stadium, the course heads east toward 900 East, which was definitely steeper than I remember it, before heading down 9th East. I wasn't really sure what sort of pacing to go for. I think I was under 6:30/mi for the first quarter mile, but as it got steeper I knew that was unsustainable, and I backed off and finished the first mile in 6:58.
The second mile features the descent down 9th East, then a short climb up to campus followed by a long downhill off of campus down the ramp. My second mile came in at 6:44. From there, the course was different than the last time I had done it. Between construction changing the campus, and trying to keep the race off of roads, the last mile has a lot more turns than it had in the past. People don't always realize this, but turns are slow. From the Indoor Practice Facility, you turn right and go 440 feet before turning left. Then it's 500 feet and a right turn. 50 feet, turn left. 200 feet turn right. 95 feet turn left. 200 feet turn right. 160 feet, make a U-turn. (U-turns are really slow.) A few hundred feet might seem like a long way, but when you're running more than 13 feet per second, that section I described turns into: 37 seconds, turn, run 4 seconds, turn, run 15 seconds, turn, run 7 seconds, turn, run 15 seconds, turn, run 12 seconds, U-turn. Each turn slows you down, so you have to put the effort in to speeding back up every 10 or 20 seconds. Mile 3 was 6:40.
After that twisty section, the next 1/3 mile is mostly straight-forward (literally) with only 90° turn before you get to finish on a stretch that in only 500 feet manages to pack in about 10 stairs (yes, stairs on a race course), a left turn, a short downhill, cobblestones, a short uphill, a left turn, a U-turn and then 200 feet on the outdoor track to finish. It's not exactly the fastest finish I could imagine. My watch put my last 0.17 miles at 5:22/mi pace. This should catch your eye for two reasons. On is that this is very fast, and evidence that I should have been going faster earlier in the race. The second is that a 5k is supposed to be 3.10 miles, not 3.17. There are a number of factors that go into this distance. First off, a race should be set up so that every runner must run at least the required distance. But if you spend time weaving through traffic, or take wide turns you will end up running a longer distance. Second, my GPS watch has error. I can't say if it is prone under or over measure, or if it varies by day or location. I also have to start and stop it on time, though I can promise that I didn't miss the start line by more than a foot or two, and the finish line by more than 50 feet. (More on that in a moment.) But I do a pretty decent job of running courses to keep my route short, and 0.07 miles is 370 feet. I've mapped the course using google maps multiple times, and can't come up with less than 3.15 miles for the distance. (Not that google maps are authoritative either.) But still, I have a sinking sensation that the course might have been a bit long. 250 feet doesn't sound like a ton, but it's in the neighborhood of 20 seconds. Anyway, it all adds up to an official finish time of 21:14. That was good enough for 3rd place in the 30-39 age group (37th overall out of 808). So here's a picture of me with my medal.
It's 33 seconds behind my 5k PR, and 1:58 behind the 5k pace I set at the Fox and Turkey 4 mile race two years ago, but given the circumstances it wasn't too bad. And finally, a word about that finish. It was difficult to run hard until the last hundred feet or so, and I ran that really hard. Harder than nearly anyone else. Everyone else just crossed the finish line and stopped. Plus there were spectators just past the finish line. And cameras filming the finish line. This is all to say that I was really moving when I came across the line and immediately found myself with no where to go. So if you need a laugh, go watch the video of me crossing the finish line and then freak out as I try to figure out where I can go without running someone over. It's right at the 7:00 mark of this video. (And the link will take you to a few seconds before I come into the picture.)
1 comment:
Almost all GPS watches will estimate long. The easy way to think about this is that it is measuring your straight line distance + white noise (it's not truly white, but we're simplifying). Even though the noise is small compared to your straight line distance, it adds up. The primary exception to this will be when you are in a very high obstacle area (think downtown Chicago) and you lose signal track. By the time you've reacquired, you're around a corner and it takes a straightline step which causes the estimate to be shorter.
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