Category Archives: Race Review

Race Day: TC 1 Mile

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As I said last week the mile is a very different distance to race and one I haven’t done in a long time. Unfortunately, I didn’t win the $10,000 time bonus for breaking 4:00 but then again no one else did either! The event was well supported with aid stations every mile!

Ok, seriously though! Thursday was a beautiful day but as it got closer to evening it looked like it might rain and the temperatures dropped. Walking from the car to packet pickup I was chilly in my t-shirt and shorts but once we started warming up I wasn’t cold again until leaving the restaurant on the way home!

We did a couple mile warm-up while watching some of the first waves start. There were 8 waves, starting with a mass wave followed by four 10 year age groups, then the USATF Championship wave, women elite and finally the male elite wave. Since this is a USATF Circuit race I ran with the MDRA team in the USATF Championship Wave.

There isn’t a lot to report in a mile race! The course started alongside Loring Park in downtown Minneapolis on Willow Street before turning left onto 14th Street and finally turning onto Nicollet Ave for the majority of the mile. The quarter mile was marked with duct tape at the corner of 14th and Lasalle Ave with someone yelling this is the quarter. The half mile was marked with a digital clock near the corner of 13th and Nicollet. There may have been a 3/4 mark but I didn’t see it, the mark would have been at about 10th St. The race ended outside of M&I Bank, major race sponsor between 6th and 7th Streets on Nicollet.

For those unfamiliar with Nicollet, after 13th St it becomes a transportation mall with a fairly narrow street lined on either side with downtown restaurants and businesses. Several of the restaurants were designated cheer zones and there was a lot of crowd support in the last half mile.

My Garmin said there was a net elevation gain of 62 ft. I’m not going to bank on its accuracy (look at the map, I’m sure I didn’t zigzag!) But it was more uphill than flat or downhill in my opinion – I don’t think it was noticeable but gradual.

Now to my actual race – not sure what to do I went out hard running almost 100% and was probably in oxygen debt before the 1/4 mile mark. Garmin says I went through in 1:15. I didn’t know my time until the half mile which I thought said 2:33, my Garmin says it was 2:41. The 2nd 1/4 time was 1:26. I was starting to hurt pretty good and was feeling the anaerobic nature of the event and lack of oxygen! But I kept pushing through, people were passing me and I tried not to let them! There were a few women ahead of me and I tried to get them – one past me somewhere in here – which upset me. In this almost sprint race there is less focus on externals as everything seems to flying by and my gaze was straight forward. I went through the 3rd 1/4 in 1:23. Somewhere in here I saw the finish line and put in a final push and as it neared I really kicked it in. I ended up passing a lot people in the last quarter – well maybe 5 or 6, including at least one woman. The final 1/4 was 1:20. My splits add up to 5:25, although officially my time was 5:27. It seems everyone’s times from the team were off by 2 seconds or so as well. It was chip-timed so I’m sure their time is accurate.

My final breakdown is 126th place with a 5:27 mile. 1:15, 1:26, 1:23, and 1:20. My slowest pace was 6:02 while I dropped into 4:30’s in the final kick! Team MDRA finished 6th with a combined time of 25:05 in the USATF results. I should have actually scored for the team but it looks like they made an error.

They had water bottles available at the finish area and I guess treats inside the M&I Building but we were more interested in watching the elites race than anything else. Kenyans Josephat Kithii and Rose Kosgei won the elite divisions, neither getting the bonus. Both did set new course records though! Check out Down the Backstretch or The Final Sprint for all the details!

Congrads to fellow teammates for their performances Kirk, Nate, Mike, and Colin.

[tags] TC Mile, Mile, Minnesota, USATF, Nicollet Mall [/tags]

Race Day: Get in Gear 10K

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This race is billed as the annual rite into the spring racing season. Well it definitely wasn’t spring out there. I awoke to a car completely covered in snow and snow covering most of the grass. It wasn’t sticking to the roads but the air temperature was about 30 with the wind chill of around 18. It was pretty windy and intermittent light snow. YUCK! Why did we move to Minnesota??

I’ll start out by saying that I was pleased with my time after the race given the conditions. When I got home I became even happier when I realized that I was only 2 seconds from a PR. That happiness was tempered with the thought that I should have found a few more seconds and actually PRed but oh well.

Packet Pick-up went pretty smoothly. I went down on Friday because Minnehaha Falls (check out this older pic of the falls) is only about a mile from work. The packets were full of goodies including a box of Minute rice! I opted for the cotton t-shirt instead of paying more for the tech shirt – it has a pretty good design.

Race morning was biting cold. I wasn’t 100% sure what to wear but opted for a long sleeve tech shirt underneath the jersey with tights. And of course gloves and a hat! At the start it was a little chilly but I’m glad that was all I wore because it got warm on parts of the course. We had to wait around for awhile before the gun went off but this is the largest 10K in Minnesota and the 15th in the nation. This year there were almost 3,500 finishers and I’m sure some people didn’t even show up. We settled into our spot in the chute and shuffled to the line. It was then that we realized we started to far back in the chute. Within the first few hundred yards we were dodging people left and right some who were almost walking. I tried not to zig-zag too much but had to fight the crowd for at least the first mile. The course was pretty scenic running along the Mississippi Byways right next to the Mississippi River. The overall course was mostly flat with a net elevation loss and only one hill worth mentioning (right after halfway). I came through the first mile in 6:34. I felt like I was working a little bit but it didn’t seem strenuous. I was definitely a little tight.

We continued along the river for the second mile. At this point I let teammates Kirk and Chris pull away a bit. Nothing too exciting was happening. We were mostly protected from the wind during this stretch. It was generally from the West but was blowing pretty much every direction at some point! I came through the second mile in 6:27. The third mile continued on the West bank before making a jump onto the Lake Street bridge. I caught back up to Kirk and Chris as we got to the middle of the bridge and ran with them for awhile again. It was really during this mile that it finally seemed like the crowd had dispersed on the course. After crossing the bridge we headed down the East Bank of the Mississippi, now in Saint Paul. I came through the third mile in 6:36. I came through the 5K in 20:22.

Right after the third mile we climbed up the hill to the University of St Thomas area before turning into the wind and going back to the river. When we made the turn and headed West again, it was spitting snow and had some powerful wind gusts during this short section. With the hill I let Kirk and Chris go but started finding other people to run with. As in most races I would pick it up for awhile with the occasional runner who was passing me. I went with one guy wearing an IU Little 500 hoodie for awhile and he helped me catch onto another group of guys that I’d run with for awhile. I came through mile four in 6:46. Mile 5 was more of the same trying to hang on and push through the tiredness. Going back and forth with runners and staying tough. I came through the mile in 6:40. Mile 6 seemed pretty long but it was a difficult mile. We continued along the river before making a quick loop to get onto the Ford Parkway bridge. In my mind this meant we were pretty much done, but in reality we had almost 3/4 of a mile to go from when we actually got on the bridge. The bridge was brutal because we were running right back into the wind. I tried to draft off of some people but it wasn’t really effective and actually slowed me down a bit (maybe my 2 seconds for a PR!). A small group of us went back and forth for the rest of the race. After I crossed the bridge I kept thinking – we have to be almost done. Finally we came to the 6 mile mark and I ran it in 6:52. The last .2 went by pretty quickly as we left the main roads and down into the park (the last half mile was pretty much all downhill). Somewhere in there we merged with the 5K runners so the final sprints to the finish was a mix of 5Kers and 10Kers which made it a little frustrating since you didn’t know who you were trying to outkick! I did manage to kick in the last 0.2 miles in 1:32. My last 5K was 20:50 my Garmin measured the total course 0.09 long so officially the last 5K was 21:08.

My overall 10K time was 41:30.

I think this would be a good race if it hadn’t been so cold! April is so unpredictable that you never know for sure what you are going to get. I would say that crowd support was pretty good for how cold it was! What did you think of the race?

[tags] 10K, Get in Gear, Race Review [/tags]

Race Day: Earth Day Half-Marathon

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After 12 weeks of training the race began. But a few comments about the before part of the race. The race directors had to change the course due to a bridge being closed in St Cloud. They notified everyone of this change via e-mail before the race and updated their course maps on the website. They also made it very clear that there would be no race day packet pick-up (so for an Earth Day event they wanted you to drive to the city 2x’s. St Cloud is a little over an hour for us). What they didn’t make as clear was that a local high school track team was doing proxy packet pick-up for a $5 donation. Well worth the cost since it would be cheaper than 2 trips up to St Cloud. I knew things would be a little different since I’m on a USATF team, but it didn’t look like they offered race-day pick-up. After several e-mails and a little frustration I found out that I would be able to pick-up my packet at the USATF tent on race-day! Shew!

We got to St Cloud with plenty of time to get ready and warm-up on a pretty good morning for racing. It was mid-40’s with a sometimes strong wind. It was a little hard to decide what to wear for the day because the wind was still cold but I hadn’t brought a dry-fit t-shirt so it was either long sleeves or just a singlet (I was wearing shorts no matter what). I opted for the singlet and cotton gloves (and it felt good for the majority of the race). The campus of St Cloud State Univ is right next to the Mississippi River and would serve as a good place for the looping course. This would prove to not be one of my favorite

race courses. On the right is a map of the course from my Garmin.

The races website also called this a fast and flat course. It may be fast with a winning time of 66 something, but it isn’t flat. I will say that the course had an overall elevation loss but there are a lot of spikes on my elevation chart:

My official time is 1:36:58 my watch said 1:36:51 for the race so that’s pretty close! However, my Garmin said it was 13.25 miles not 13.1, oh well I guess. It is a certified course and I know that there are differences in distance because we tend to cut the corners a lot closer than they do on the measuring device. Either way it still didn’t help my final time be where I wanted it: 1:30 or 1:34.

We started right next to the St Cloud State University’s Recreation center after all the pre-race formalities. Everyone took off and I set into a comfortable pace going through town heading towards a lake which we went around for the first mile. Imagine everyone’s surprise when we came through the 1 mile in 5:50 something… Since the course had been changed the old painted miles weren’t accurate anymore, but someone had put the mile marker and its big bright yellow balloon at that mark. Everyone looked at their watches and discussed the situation. I took a look at my watch and realized the error and kept on going! A little farther around the lake they had the mile marked with a big clock that read 7 something. My split was actually 6:50, a little fast but it was comfortable. We then ran through town and I felt comfortable with the pace, I wasn’t really passing many people but still felt the pace was solid. I came through the second mile at 6:40. I really need to figure out how to make the Garmin show the split time and the overall time so I don’t have to do estimated mental math. I knew I was still sub-7 but didn’t realize I was that quick. The third miles we crossed the Mississippi River and had a nice down hill along the river. It was tree covered and probably could be pretty in the summer, if you aren’t racing a 1/2 marathon! I came through the third mile in 6:42 and still felt good. I took a Clif Shot Blok as planned, but had trouble getting the bag back into my pocket. I decided to hold onto in my hands for awhile longer. At this point the overall time is 20:13. This was a 6:44 pace with an overall race projection of 1:28.

This fourth mile did a little out and back that was annoying. We went about a tenth of a mile down a little road hit a water stop and then did a 180 and headed back out. A comment to the race director would be to make this water stop accessible both ways on the course not just the one direction. After that we headed back up out of the river valley and I hit the mile mark at 6:52. We then went up and over the Mississippi River again. Right after we crossed the bridge we went onto a sidewalk that was lined on both sides with cheering fans. This was a great feeling as they were pretty close to us and sent a surge through me, wiping away any pain I was feeling. It was more of an uphill mile back onto campus for the second loop of the campus. I came through the 5th mile at 6:59. We continued around campus, running through a plaza and alongside the river. The elevation chart show a quick steep uphill, but I don’t really recall this one. I do know that we went downhill under the bridge we had run over during the 5th mile before bottoming out again along the river valley. We went through the Gu stop (which I didn’t take) and I talked with another guy wearing an MDRA jersey – he’s not on the USATF team but runs with the club sometimes. I tried to keep in contact with him but like so many other “marks” he pulled away. I came through the 6th mile at 6:59. I took another scheduled Shot Blok. We went through the relay exchange area and I was pretty sure the clock said 43 something so I felt pretty good. My watch actually says I ran the first half in 45:07 which is still pretty good. This had me at 6:53 pace which is a 1:30:13 projected finish.

At this point we came to the hardest hill on the course which was a longer sometimes steep uphill that went for 3/4ths of a mile and climbed about 90 feet in elevation. I had planned to take it conservatively up the hill since I hadn’t been running a lot of hills around here. The course leveled out along the shoulder of a major entrance road into the city. This was now also running into the wind which we’d do for the next several miles. I posted a 7:42 mile. We continued along the road making a detour into a sub-division. Nothing too exciting happened here as I slipped into the monotony and mid-race doldrums. I ran a 7:29 8th mile. During the next mile which continued boringly along the road a guy went by and I decided to stick with him. It felt good to “open” back up a little bit and get into a solid rhythms again. There wasn’t a lot of crowd support along the road but occasional pockets of people cheering. At an aid station I let the guy I was running with get away from me but I managed to drop back to a 7:13 9th mile. I was at 1:03:31 for 9 miles. This had me just over 7 minute pace for the whole race and a projected finish of 1:32.

We finally turned off the main road and headed into a sub-division next to the St. Cloud Country Club. There were some little hills up and down along the way. I managed to to run a 7:25 for the 10th mile. As we continued through the sub-division I was running near the edge of the road and managed to scrape my arm on a metal fence post. That pretty much describes how I was feeling. I was quickly getting exhausted and was starting to get passed by more and more people. Occasionally I would try and go with them, this would work sometimes! Right before the 11 mile mark we climbed a hill that at that point proved to be pretty formidable to concur. I came through the mile at 7:59. My Achilles started to hurt a little bit here, nothing major but it was saying hello! Now the race is pretty much downhill along a bike trail to the finish – easy right? And the wind to the back to boot! They had some fun signs along the way such as only two more miles to go and such encouragement as go and catch that person, or something like that. It was pretty much all lost on me as I was focusing on running and not getting passed by too many people. The downhill did help a little as I ran a 7:56! Sadly I fell apart during the last mile. Not really sure what happened but the torrents went by as I was getting passed a lot and didn’t have the energy to mount a surge to go with anyone. I ran a 8:14 13th mile. As we came into the clearing near the parking lots you could hear the finish but it was still a long ways off. We made several turns before it was finally in sight. I was trying to finish strong and ran a 1:44 last tenth(or quarter). As I neared the final couple of hundred yards some woman started to pass me. This seemed unacceptable so I stepped and went with her. She didn’t like that and kicked it up a notch. Enough of this crap, I dropped into bottom gear and laid out a huge kick. It’d be interesting to really see how much I beat her by but since it is chipped timed there isn’t anyway to know unless they video taped it!

To make myself feel a little bit better I’m gonna get all geeky with you and my Garmin. I subdivided the race into 0.10 mile distances and it produced 132 splits! Remember that my watch actually thinks the course was 13.24 so the last split is just 0.04 of a mile. It says I ran that short segment (approx 64 meters) in 11 seconds which is a 4:56 pace. So even though I couldn’t handle any more on the course I was able to summon the strength to sprint for 64 meters and out kick a woman!

I struggled to keep standing as they cut my chip off and I shuffled to get water. “Water, water, that’s all they have?” I said to myself a little frustrated, exhausted and upset. But as I left the chute area I realized they had stuff set up inside the field house. They actually had a ton of goodies: Gatorade, cookies, bananas, apples, oranges, bread, and pizza. We sat and ate a little bit so I could recover! After sitting for awhile I wandered over to get a free massage. They were massaging the calves, hamstrings, and glutes. It felt really good. The only damage to my body is my stupid toe-nail has a blister again and my Achilles feels a little tender.

We didn’t stick around for the awards or anything but I showered and we spent the afternoon in St. Cloud.  The final breakdown is 209/1773 overall, 180/895 males, and 40/157 age group.

[tags] Half Marathon, Earth Day, Race Review [/tags]

Race Review: Human Race 8K

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Awhile back I registered for my first Minnesota race – the Human Race 8K, which is part of the USATF Series. The race was also featured at Down the Backstretch – which is a well-known and respected running blog in Minnesota. Here is DtB’s recap and a link to photos.

The race was efficiently run from the beginning. There was a variety of options for registration and I chose using active.com which allowed me to enter my USATF # (and receive the discount) and get everything done pretty quickly. The event was put on by TSL Events (The Sporting Life Events) and hosted at the University of St Thomas in Saint Paul which is a pretty campus.

Packet pick-up was pretty smooth for me – pick up your chip and number and then go get your shirt. You had a variety of options when you registered and could actually choose not to get a shirt – which I kinda wish I hadn’t. I selected a short-sleeve wicking shirt – hoping for a really nice technical shirt. Instead I got a nicely designed “wicking” shirt that almost feels like a t-shirt. It claims to be 100% polyester, but definitely doesn’t feel like my other technical shirts. Oh well, its bright green!

I warmed up with Team MDRA and had a good warm-up and got some advice for running the course. It was a nice course along Summit Ave in St. Paul. You may have heard of Summit Ave because it is also the last stretch of the Twin Cities Marathon and maybe the hardest because of its long uphill. Since this was an out-and-back course the uphill was fine on the return when it was actually a downhill! The course is actually an overall negative course with the finish line actually below the starting line. My Garmin said we lost 29 feet of elevation throughout the course.

The race was won in 24:06 (4:50). My overall time was 31:27, my watch said 31:24 but it was chip-timed so I’ll go with that! My goal was 32 minutes – which I extrapolated from my 10K goal of breaking 40 minutes.

I tried to start out at a decently easy pace since the first mile was mostly uphill. We gained about 50 feet of elevation within the mile. It was hard to let people go by me, but I also knew that I needed to be smart. I saw a couple of the MDRA guys within striking distance and just hung on with them. I thought I crossed the first mile in 6:30, but my watch actually said 6:20. I think if I had known that I might have freaked a little so it was ok! We basically just ran along tree lined streets for the whole race. We ran out did a little loop and ran straight back. Nothing too exciting in the second mile, I tried to stay focused on the MDRA runners ahead of me and maintaining an even pace. I actually passed one of the MDRA guys somewhere near here and I just kept pushing on. My second mile was 6:12, thanks in part to some downhill! I tried to keep it even since I knew we’d have the hill coming back up!

During the third mile we made the loop around a law school and headed for home. We did have some uphill here but I kept forging ahead. I grabbed a quick sip of water at the water stop and still ran a 6:25 mile. For the next mile I could have sworn I ran a lot slower, I was doing mental math trying to figure out what I needed to run the next mile to stay under 6:30 overall pace. I was way off!! I think, that I thought I had just run a 7 minute mile because I came through 4 miles at 25:30 and somehow I thought that was back at 6:30 pace but I was actually still 30 seconds ahead. Or something like that… I don’t know – I’m confusing myself trying to remember what was happening out there!

From about 2.5 to 4 was almost all uphill not very steep but just enough to make you dig in and work a little bit. I came through the 4th mile at 6:34. With the downhill finish I tried to give it everything I had… I worked hard running it out and with about a quarter to go I dropped the hammer. My final .99 miles was 5:51 which is a 5:54 pace. Looking at my Garmin’s pace chart I dropped from a 6:03 pace to a 4:31 pace in the final quarter of the race. Going geeky with the Garmin that is a 76 second last quarter!

The finish was great because we lost about 100 feet of elevation during the last mile which really helped me run a 5:51 0.99 which is a 5:54 actual mile pace. I also laid out a killer kick knocking off at least 5 guys in the last hundred meters or so.

I had a great race, it was fun and a nice atmosphere. It is a different league up here though than running around Anderson. Especially races in the USATF Circuit are going to be hard to pick up any hardware, but I might have to try and find some obscure races in the middle of nowhere to even place in my age group!

It was a beautiful day for racing! The full results are posted here. I finished 139th overall out of 1,033. I got 32 out of 83 in my age division!

UPDATE: Team MDRA placed 6th out of 10 Male USATF Teams and our female counterparts Team Unattached placed 5th out of 8.

[tags] 8k, Road Race, Human Race [/tags]

Best of 2007: Race Event

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This is my personal opinion and only based on the events that I attended. What do you think was the best overall event you attended in 2007?

This is another tough category. Again in no particular order.

  1. 500 Festival Mini Marathon – while I’m not a big fan of this event since I’ve never raced well and don’t like 35,000 fellow runners, they put on an excellent event.
  2. Drumstick Dash – this was a fun and festive event with lots of activities for every age and competitive stripe. I enjoyed this event.
  3. PopWeaver 5K – this is always a fun event with the Popcorn Festival and a year’s supply of popcorn. There is also always good competition and lots of high schoolers.

Honorable Mentions

  1. DINO Races – These are fun no matter what, but more fun if you do a bunch of them, win a pair of shoes, or just like to get muddy!
  2. Run the Mounds – This is a tough 5 miler with good post-race food and lots of running friends.

Yesterday’s Workout

I hit the gym for an easy 30 minutes on the Elliptical machine and then 5 minutes on the stair climber. It was fairly enjoyable for a gym workout! After 15 minutes on the elliptical, the machine flashed and said pedal backwards! I tried it for 5 minutes, that is a weird feeling to “run” backwards. It definitely works a new set of muscles, I might try it more often.

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