Jingle Bell 5K in Brighton, NY

Josh and I competed in the Jingle Bell 5K this morning, and the race went quite well. The weather has been chilly lately--a small dusting of snow last night had made the Brighton neighborhoods' roads a bit slick during our warm-up. Fortunately, the small patches of ice had either melted by the time the race began or they really were of no consequence anyway.

At the starting line at 9 AM sharp, we didn't notice any of the fastest local guys around...until about 10 seconds before the gun, I spotted Jeff Beck to my right wearing a Santa Claus hat and elf shoes. He would go on to win in a pedestrian time (for him) of 16:05.

We maintained a strong pace for the first mile, which contained the only uphill portion of the course (and it's a very mild uphill). Jeff was out in front along with Dave Bischoff and another guy, about 10 to 20 meters ahead of me and Josh. We passed Dave after about 1000 meters, and then Josh made a nice push, pulling me along with him, to catch Jeff and the other guy before completing the first mile.

We came through the first mile in 4:58. This was either the easiest 4:58 I've ever run (less likely) or the mile mark was a bit short (more likely). In either case, I felt great, but Josh and I were both a little stunned by the split, so we eased off the pace as Jeff Beck and the other guy slowly opened up a gap. Over the next few minutes, I began convince myself that the mile mark was probably short and that we probably shouldn't have backed off the pace, especially considering how well we were running (I later found out that Josh felt as good as I did, maybe better). We traded off small surges throughout the middle mile but mostly ran shoulder to shoulder.

Around the turn into the third mile, Josh suddenly opened up a 5 to 10 second gap that I was never able to close. Maybe this came during a small lapse in concentration or a brief moment of weakness. In either case, these types of things seem to happen sometimes during races, even when I'm feeling strong. It's difficult to understand because there really was no point where I felt like I was in agony and couldn't push the pace more. I need to work on simply sticking to a competitor like glue. The photo below depicts Josh smoking me down the stretch.

We finished 3rd and 4th overall--Josh in 16:29 and me in 16:40. That's a post-collegiate 5K PR for Josh and 3 seconds faster than last year for me. Although I feel like I could have run a better time, I am excited by how strong I felt throughout the race. Hopefully this bodes well for the upcoming indoor track season.

Official results are here.

Summerfest 12K

This was the first race that I had targeted as an "important race" since the McMullen Mile. It was the least established of the 2010 Rochester Runner of the Year series (and it had no prize money), so I figured I would be able to pick up quite a few points for the RROY competition.

The race was a 12K (strange distance for a road race) through the rolling hills surrounding Mendon Ponds park. Josh also attended, but due to his upcoming Dutchess County Classic Half Marathon, he planned to run no faster than 5:50 per mile splits.



At the starting line, we noticed that none of the fastest local guys were present, so it seemed likely that we would contend for the win (a somewhat rare occurrence for us in Rochester, particularly for a RROY series race). My plan was to take the pace out around 5:35 to 5:40 and cruise at that speed for as long as possible. I hoped to take the uphills conservatively but to hit the downhill and flat portions aggressively.

After the "gun," or rather "Ready, Set, GO!" (does Fleet Feet have a non-violence policy or something?), I darted out to the front and no one came with me, which was surprising because my pace did not feel particularly fast. My legs immediately start to beg my brain: "Maybe we can win this without having to work too hard!" But the logical part of my brain responds with: "No! You'll be much happier with yourself if you win AND throw down a great race time." But then the lazy part chimes in with: "Eh, you've been training too hard, it's hilly and windy, just take it easy, fool." Maybe the lazy brain was conspiring with my legs... In any case, I knew Josh wouldn't be too far back, and he would be more than happy to out-kick me if I were to allow complacency to take over.

I came through the first mile in 5:49. I knew I wasn't hammering it but it certainly didn't feel quite that slow. I made a half-hearted attempt to push the pace and split the second mile in 5:30. Very suspicious. Josh and I would later agree that the first mile marker was a bit long. Third mile, 5:40. I was feeling strong at this point, and a glance over my left shoulder on a left-hand turn confirmed that I had opened up about a 20 second lead on Josh. I definitely should not have looked back because the newfound knowledge intensified the lazy brain's influence: "Just run 5:50s, piece of cake. That's all Josh is doing and your lead is plenty big." Sure enough, I split both the fourth and fifth miles in 5:53. Main lesson learned from this race: don't look back because that just means you can run faster.

The last two miles were quite severely into the wind, which along with some uphill sections, slowed me down considerably. I had trouble keeping the pace under 6:00. I need to get used to these longer races again. The good news is, I managed to take the win, which was satisfying. I've been feeling fitter lately, and now that the weather is improving, I am really looking forward to some great workouts and races. Josh finished a strong second place (which gave RKR the 1-2 sweep!), and he's looking strong for his upcoming half marathon. Stay tuned to RKR for updates.

Full results for the 12K are here.

Running fast again

Haven't posted in awhile, but I'm still here and still running. I had a fun time in Santa Cruz but my running progress stalled: sub-par mileage and virtually zero workouts.

Now that I'm back in Rochester, I've managed a few grueling and successful workouts (see my training log if you're interested), and I am gearing up for a 12K road race on Sept. 5, followed by several XC races this Fall.

Sunday Long Run

I had a really enjoyable long run this morning. It was a typical Santa Cruz morning. Cool, cloudy, and a little foggy when I departed at 10am. By 11, the skies were deep blue and the clouds were gone. The out-and-back route proceeded north from the UCSC campus into Wilder Ranch State Park and curved down towards the coast. I turned around when I was about 7 miles out at Highway 1. Crazy elevation change and no mountain lion sightings!

This is kind of a cool fly-by feature, but the video doesn't do justice to the elevation change. More details for the route can be found here.

Santa Cruz 5K (10K?)

Running in Santa Cruz has been pretty fun. The scenery is amazing and there are endless dirt roads and single-track trails to explore in the surrounding redwood forests. It has also been very challenging because of the terrain. I am living on the UCSC campus, which is built on the side of a mountain that slopes quickly down to the city and coast below. Every day, I am faced with a choice: run on an extreme downhill for the first few miles into town or run on an slightly less extreme uphill for the first few miles into the woods (where supposedly Mountain Lions lurk). I almost always take choice #2.

I think my legs are slowly adjusting running these relentless hills, no thanks to the Santa Cruz Firecracker race that I ran over July 4 weekend.

The Firecracker had a shared start for the 5K and the 10K. The 10K course was a combined road and trail race that featured, as the race brochure termed it, a "brutally long and steep hill in the middle miles." I decided to run the 5K.

I'm going to try to describe this race in the present tense. We'll see how this goes. As the race starts, it's impossible to tell who will be running the 10K and who will be running the 5K. After about 1/4 mile, I'm running in a tight lead pack at a reasonably comfortable pace. I figure that I'll wait to make any strategic decisions until after the 10K and 5K competitors go our separate ways.

After about 3/4 miles, we come to a T-intersection, with the following writing: "<---10K | 5K--->" The two guys ahead of me swoop left and I head right. After about 10 seconds, I realize that no one followed me. This seems strange but I keep going for a bit, slowly realizing that somehow I'd fucked it up. After a few more glances behind me, I turn around dejectedly and head back to the mass of runners who are now way ahead of me.

As I run by the T-intersection again, I point at the writing and stare at a race volunteer who simply shrugs and says "That's for lap 2!" At this point I'm pretty pissed off and upset that my $35 registration fee has gone to waste. I'm still running hard but I no longer care. Somehow, I miss the real 5K turn off (apparently it was not at the previous T-intersection, which was just leftover road paint from previous years' race route...Brilliant!) and continue onto the bumpy 10K course and "The Hill" in my road racing flats. Great.



The 10K actually ended up being kind of fun. I approached it like a tempo run and passed people most of the way. I ascended the hill better than I expected and managed to cruise the downhills very quickly. Annoyingly, some guy interviewed me with a camera right after I finished and I had to try to explain my idiocy in running the 10K "by accident."

I finished 7th in the 10K, but as a final kick in the nuts, the official race results put me down as "#661 Unknown" because I was actually signed up for the 5K. And yes, that's a really pathetic 10K time.

Overall, the Santa Cruz running scene seems OK but I'm going to withhold judgment on how well organized their races are until I've seen a few more (although there don't seem to be any more during the next 4 weeks that I'm here). I met a few of the stronger runners in the race who do workouts at the local high school on weeknights, but I don't have a car so I probably won't be able to join them.

Barefoot Running

Hopefully this post won't make me out to be a raving ignorant elitist.

I was browsing some stuff today about barefoot running (which is, according to the literature, different from running barefoot..?), and I encountered a FAQ with the following ridiculous Q+A:

Q: Why don’t we see more barefoot runners at top levels of competition?

A: Most elite runners can probably run nearly as fast with or without shoes. However, these days, any consistently competitive runners, have already been offered running shoe endorsement/sponsorship deals. Most of the elite runners we see winning big prize money, wouldn’t be able to enter those races without sponsorship, most of which comes from running shoe companies.

If you know me, you're probably aware that I'm fine with taking on "the man" or "the establishment" or what-have-you. But I find this stuff utterly ridiculous. I guarantee you that Haile Gebreselassie , Kenenisa Bekele, Ryan Hall, and all the other top distance runners in the world wouldn't give two shits about lucrative sponsorships if wearing shoes prevented them from setting a new world record or winning the Boston Marathon.

This isn't even the right question. A better question is, "Why don't we see more barefoot runners winning and placing well in local and regional races?"

Well I've got an answer: Barefoot running is a bunch of BS. It's dogma. Doctrine. It oozes with the same type of irrationality that causes so many to blindly follow extremist religions and captivating-but-nonsensical political fear mongering.

Let's look into this a little more closely. Take another look at the FAQ linked above; it's loaded with simple-minded and flawed logic.

It answers the question "Why run barefoot?" with a series of questions such as, "Why run with shoes?", "Were you born with shoes?", "Did you evolve to run with shoes?", etc. First of all, this is not an argument. But if we assume that it is, it's a terrible one. There are many things that I was not "born with" that benefit me very greatly. Or no, perhaps civilization has torn us away from everything that is natural and pure. We don't do what we are "meant to do" (what does that even mean?)

But I digress. We change our footwear choices to adapt to particular settings. Trainers, racers, spikes. Maybe there is a place where a barefoot option is optimal. But to claim that barefoot running is ALWAYS the BEST...!! This brings me back to my rant about barefoot proponents' absolutist dogma.

Oh, here's another great one:

Q: Isn’t it just Plain old Common Sense that we Need Shoes?

A: What passes as “common sense” is rarely sensible. Real sense is not common.

!@$#@!#@$$@ !!!!! Ok, breathe. Phew. Speechless.

I'll just leave it at this: The day a barefoot runner beats me in a race is the day I will consider even beginning to entertain this "philosophy."

Charlie McMullen Mile

This was my second time running the McMullen Mile and it was an incredibly fun race. The male "elite" heat was scheduled to go off at 7:30pm on a cool, sunny, and calm Thursday evening at the Nazareth College track, so I had all day to prepare.

More precisely, I had all day to obsess over the race and turn myself into a nervous wreck. I had raced a number of 1500m and mile type distances at indoor track meets over the Winter, so I'm not sure why I was so anxious. Perhaps because, aside from a few 5K races, I hadn't done any workouts faster than tempo speed since April 14th. Even worse, I hadn't run repetition (mile-pace) speed workouts since the last time I raced a mile on March 7. On top of this, my last few races had not gone well and I felt like I was clinging to "race form" for too long without taking some down-time. And finally, this was the first time Karyn was watching me race so I didn't want to disappoint!

Pre-race activities were fairly standard fare. I arrived early with Karyn, chatted with Josh, glanced around to figure out who else was running, etc. Josh and I jogged for about 20 minutes on a trail behind the Nazareth campus. It was nice to race on their track, which felt very familiar because we run on it often for our workouts. Josh said something about how the warmup sometimes provides a hint as to how the race will go (i.e. if you feel light and bouncy versus heavy and flat), but other times it gives no signal whatsoever. The latter seemed true for me on this day, although I started to feel more confident once I slipped into my spikes and eased into some fast 100 meter strides.



Although we had provided seed times when we registered, they arranged us in a random order at the line. This was odd, but I didn't feel wronged because I got to start in the fifth position, which seemed about right. I got off the line slowly but maneuvered into the middle of the pack for the first 200 meters. Steve Strelick bounded to the front and set a relatively slow pace.



We had hoped to run a fast first lap despite any games the front-runners might play, so Josh made a move to the front and I stuck to his shoulder. We came through the quarter mile in 69 seconds, which was slower than planned but still acceptable.



I felt strong and maintained pace with the three or four guys ahead. At some point, Josh dropped back several meters. There was about a three meter gap between me and the small lead group for the second lap and most of the third lap. I came through lap two in 68 seconds.

Lap three was similar. I continued to feel strong and made (what I thought was) a solid effort to push the pace (I would later find out that my effort was only enough to sustain another 69 second quarter mile). Chad Byler made a great move on the home-stretch of lap three and he leapt past me by a few meters as we came into the final lap.

The last quarter mile was a struggle. I had still felt reasonably energetic with 500 meters to go, but 100 meters later I was suddenly barely hanging on. Byler's move past me was mildly demoralizing, and I couldn't match his pace as the small lead group ahead was pulling away. With 200 meters to go, I heard someone coming up from behind me. I didn't look back, but somehow, I knew it was Josh. He caught me as we rounded the last turn and rocketed past me. I tried to focus on pumping my arms faster with the hope that my legs would follow, but they simply had nothing left. This was all I could do to avoid losing my form completely through the finish.



I completed the last lap in 69 seconds and finished the mile (1609 meters) in 4:36.96, a 4 second PR, which was very satisfying. I left it all on the track and gutted out a big personal best in the mile without any specific training for it. Plus this success it will make the next two weeks of rest and recovery much easier to get through!

Josh put together a very well edited video of the race that has our quarter mile splits and results. Full results from all heats of the race are here, and a complete photo gallery is here.