John's 8K: 35:40 (7:10 pace), 2nd place Age Group
With my training going well I decided I would test myself in a race. I plan to do the Bluegrass 10,000 in July-one of my favorite races-so I decided I would do the John’s 8K as a tune up race to get a good sense of where I’m at in my fitness. This was my first time racing this relatively unusual distance. (4.97 miles) The run is in honor of John Sensenig, the owner of John’s Run/Walk shop who resigned his tenured faculty position at UK in 1977 to start up a running shoe store. At the age of 82 he just recently sold his store to a long-time employee, apparently he wants to slow things down a bit finally.
As with most races I tapered for this one, although I did squeeze a two hour long run Friday afternoon of last week. Last night, however, was not one of my more typical pre-race nutritional practices. I had some coworkers over for a barbecue. For the last five months I’ve been *mostly* tea totaling, but with social gathering on a Friday evening in May, it was beer, bourbon and wine. I didn’t drink an unreasonable amount of alcohol, but probably more than ideal for the night of a race (although it was a great social evening with great people).
This morning I got to Lexington at about 7am. It was a gorgeous morning. The sun was just rising as I pulled off the interstate. I love running in the morning this time of year. I found a number of my running friends and was able to catch up with them before the run. The low 50 degree weather was only slightly chilly, but more than perfect for racing, especially with the clear sun. I started my warmup with what felt like an easy pace. I was hopped up on caffeine and carbs-I wasn’t fasting this morning. I then kicked into what felt like an 8K race pace for a minute, it was about a 6:55 pace. Probably a little fast, but to be expected. I then slow jogged it and my heart rate didn’t drop and recover as low as I thought it should. I couldn’t tell if the previous night’s alcohol was screwing with my system or if it was the adrenalin and excitement of race morning. With 15 minutes to go to start time I called it good on the warm up.
There was a decent but not overwhelming crowd (176 finishers to be exact). On one hand, I thought they might get a good size crowd in support of a local institution. On the other hand, there were a ton of competing races today and this was among the more expensive (29 races this weekend within the region plus several major marathon/half marathons the previous two weeks in Louisville and Cincinnati).
At the command of go there was a large surge of runners around me. The key is to never be competitive in the first mile, instead I try to focus on a reasonable and comfortable pace. The first quarter mile was about a 6:55 pace. It was probably too fast, but I felt comfortable so I decided not to overthink it. The first mile turned into a gradual incline. Gradually my pace slowed and I hit the first mile in 7:10. This was about exactly where I expected my pace to be. I started to feel a twinge of fire in my calves. Was that the effects of last night’s alcohol? Was I going to crash and burn before I reached 5 miles? The only thing I could really control at this point was to make sure I was going at a comfortably hard steady pace. I was steadily gaining on runners ahead of me and picking them off. That was a good confidence booster. My second mile split was 7:16 on a relatively flat section of the course. I wasn’t going gangbusters on the pace I expected, but it wasn’t a disappointment either.
Around mile three I noticed a figure ahead of me. It was John Unger, a longtime running community veteran who at 62 was giving me all the competition I could handle. I had chatted with him during the warmup and barely breathed a hello when I finally caught up with him. My third split on a very long steady 75ft climb was 7:31. Ahead of me I saw another runner that I started focusing on reeling in. There was a long downhill section where I relaxed my body, used gravity to quicken my pace and recharged the batteries at the same time. I tend to be an unusually efficient runner on the downhills. I passed this runner. Finally at the bottom of the hill we turned around and headed back up the hill. The guy I had just passed wanted to pull ahead of me again. I try not to burn more energy than necessary going uphill. You can burn a lot of energy going uphill while only getting marginal gains in pace. I was happy to let the guy take the lead as I tucked in behind and saved some energy on the draft. As we started to reach the top of the hill ahead I could feel him tiring out, I went ahead and passed him keeping my steady pace. I ran the 4th split in 7:26, it was pretty evenly incline and decline. With a mile left to go I knew it was all downhill. Not having raced a lot I didn’t feel I had a good calibration for that max effort line between running your best race and crashing short of the finish line. I was running slightly on the timid side, but I didn’t think by much. With such a short distance to go I was all in.
I saw two more runners ahead of me and focused on catching them. It was a long steady drop of 70 ft over a mile and used it to my advantage. I dropped into a 6:45 pace. I was definitely working it harder, but it also felt good. I could feel the adrenalin pumping in me, I was getting closer to that red line…it was a drug I hadn’t had in a long time. With a half mile to go I started to close in on a 6:20 pace. It’s a strange feeling. On one hand you can feel the grueling toughness of it, yet there is a secondary feeling of effortlessly floating. Maybe not effortless, maybe a natural state of being is more accurate. If I were more spiritual maybe I would probably go down that road on it…whatever it was, it was a runner’s high…a likely chemical cocktail of endorphins, adrenalin, cortisol and testosterone. In the final kick I was under a 6 minute pace. I looked up and the finish was 35:40 last split pace was a 6:31 per mile average. Average overall pace was 7:10. I was gasping for breath and a little light-headed, but felt pretty good.
Going in I had three goals. I had 37 minutes as the easily attainable goal, 36 minutes as a solid goal and 35 as a reach goal. Four years ago I probably could have run this race in about 32:30, but I wasn’t at all concerned about that. This was decisively my best run performance in two and a half years (about on par with what I could do in September 2014), and I am very excited about the direction my running is going. I took second place today in my age group.
Afterwards I joined up with Ernie and some of the crew and enjoyed some brunch at Cracker Barrel. I had carbed up ahead of the race and got a healthy dose of carbs right afterwards, so I focused on protein and fat for my recovery brunch as I caught up with some of the running regulars I’ve come to know for the last five years.