starflight 5k, in painstaking detail

This morning marked the end of tempo week with my participation in the Starflight 5K. I mentioned last time that I was shooting for a 6:15 pace, but would be content as long as I was under 6:20. Did I make it? Or will I, in fact, turn into a mopey insufferable whiner who complains non-stop about disappointing running performances? Read on for the exciting (and long-winded) answer.

Despite having run two tempo runs earlier in the week, my legs felt reasonable good. But, it was COLD --- 35 degrees at race time. I spent a lot of time thinking about what to wear this morning, only to blow it by ditching my gloves at the starting line. As we stood at the start gate (behind some high school kids wearing jeans who I would see finishing 30 minutes later), I decided my hands felt a little toasty, so I ditched my gloves with Pat and Ivi. By the way, did I mention that Pat and Ivi showed up to cheer me on? That was very awesome of them. Duane, Lou Kokernak, John Armstrong and Arthur were the fellow gazelles I recognized at the starting gate, but I'm convinced Pat and Ivi were there mainly for me.

Anyway, the race started right on time. Like I said, it was cold, but the sun was out and there was only a light breeze. The course snaked through Zilker Park, and it was a little frustrating to not have any idea where you were going, but at least there were mile markers so you had some idea of how far you'd gone. Immediately after starting, we made a sharp turn, crossed Barton Springs Dr and were headed down Lou Neff --- where we run 1000m repeats on a regular basis. It became immediately obvious that my hands were freezing. Like, they hurt they were so cold. (And they never really stopped hurting, it's just there was so much general 5K-related hurt, that they weren't as noticeable by the end.) My original plan was to chase Lou from gazelles for the first mile (he was shooting for 19:00), to make sure I at least didn't start as slowly as Thursday's tempo. By the time we passed the 1 mile marker (just past where the hike and bike trail comes up by the road), he was probably 10 seconds in front of me, but my first mile was 6:07, and I was pleased enough with that. My immediate thought was that I just needed to sustain.

The second mile turned out to be a lot different from the first mile. While the first mile was net downhill, and second mile was net uphill and had a bunch of tight turns (including a turnaround on the road that leads to the Mopac lot). We crossed back over to the south side of Barton Springs Dr, did a bunch of zig-zagging and some point I passed Pat and Ivi again. They had now been joined by DV. (Thanks for coming DV! You get awesome points too!) As I approached them, I asked for my gloves but Ivi said something like, "No, just keep running!" That's demerits for you Ivi. DV actually did try to catch up to me, but I waived him off. Gosh, my legs were feeling really tired about now. At some point I hit the 2 mile marker. Goddammit, 6:30! How do you slow down 23 seconds and totally not notice it? I would have guessed that I was under 6:20. Do I really have that little awareness of how I'm running?

Well, there really wasn't time to figure out how that had happened, but I did feel a little despair. Like I said, the legs were feeling heavy, and I didn't think there was much of a chance that I would speed up on the last mile. Still I pressed on.

We were now running what was essentially the mile repeat loop that we do with the gazelles. We headed out on the road that cuts through the disc golf course, and it was kind of nice to be in familiar territory. As we turned onto the back road that goes by the day camp, I veered out into the middle of the road to avoid the annoying camber on the sides and then let myself roll down the hill, not a fast as possible, but much faster than I normally would during mile repeats. I hit the flat at the bottom of the hill and figured I had about 800m to go, tops. I also had a bit of stitch just bellow my ribs on the right. I refocused on my form and breathing, trying to just get a little comfortable. We turned into the Barton Springs parking lot, and I started to look for the finish. After the parking lot, the course had one more climb, probably the worst one of the race, but it was over before you knew it, then we turned toward the finish and hit the 3 mile marker. Pat, Ivi and DV were all there yelling and I tried to turn it up. I didn't have much left, but Ivi was yelling that someone was going to catch me and, even though I didn't believe her, it scared me enough to keep running hard and not just limp across the finish line. (It turned out the next closest finisher was 13 seconds back, so that was big fat lie. But an effective lie. Bonus points for Ivi.)

Oh yeah, mile 3 was 6:13. Cool. Once again, you'd think I'd know it if I had sped up by 17 seconds, but I had no idea. My final time was 19:30 (19:29.50 by my watch), which is a 6:17 pace. I was content with that. Man, it was freaking hard though. I hope I can improve on that next week, but it certainly won't be easy.

I bumped into DV later at RunTex and he said I looked really strong and smooth at the finish. What a sweet thing to say. I certainly did not feel strong or smooth during that last 200m, but it's good to know I can put on a good show.

Duane ran an 18:29 (nice! 6th overal), Lou ran 19:05 (also very nice), John ran 20:02 (I'm sure he'll break 20 soon) and Arthur won the stroller division in 22:05.

I liked the race over all. It's fun to run in Zilker, even if the course was little zig-zaggy. The hills made the course tough, but they weren't awful. And the turnout was small enough to make the atmosphere feel kind of homey. Oh yeah, the shirts were nice too. Technical material (by Mizuno) with cool graphics. I'll actually get some use out of it.

I love that I just wrote a 5K recap that was longer than most people's marathon reports.

Obligatory election-related comment: I just read that Obama won in Wyoming today by TWENTY THREE percentage points. I realize it's just Wyoming, and I'm sure the Hill people will point out that results are less legit because it was a caucus. But regardless of whether it's a caucus or primary, that's a pretty big margin of victory. You can't talk your way around that. Hopefully this will get the Obama campaign back on track. Fingers crossed.