Dead Runners society race report
January 10th (Tony). Up ludicrously early today for breakfast
as we were racing at 8.00am in the next door town of Irvine in the rather
grandly titled "Southern California half-marathon and 5km". (Shelley) 6:00 came
very early, and I was having a lot of trouble getting it into my mind that I was
about to do a fool thing like run in a 5k race at 8:00, but having paid $23, it
seemed a shame to back out.
Tony's race report - half
marathon.
Did about 10 minutes jogging before the race before lining up
reasonably close to the front. The race start was a real mess, the 1/2
marathoners were supposed to line up on one side of the road and the 5km runners
on the other side. There appeared to be loads of children near me as well as
lots of rather overdressed runners who I suspected wouldn't keep up with me for
very long. I only hope the children were 5km runners on the wrong side of the
road. Just before the start I met former "kiddie" Olly who is now at
UC Irvine, Olly was the only other runner in the chemistry department apart from
me when he was in Cambridge. After the national anthem and loads of speeches we
finally got going after being stuck in the pack on the start line for about 15
minutes.
Off we went, loads of "joggers" and children in the way in the
first 1/2 mile before the pack started to thin out and I got running properly.
First mile in 7.06, the 5km runners turned off just after here and suddenly
things got very quiet. I was moving reasonably well but not quite as fast as I
would have liked, gradually working my way through the field. By California
standards it was a cool cloudy day but I was already sweating by now, I passed
lots of runners who were a bit overdressed for the conditions in the first few
miles. Mile splits 2nd 6.46 3rd 6.26 :-) 4th 7.14 :-( 5th 6.46, got to 5 miles
in 34.18. I really wanted to aim for 85 minutes although a more realistic target
was my 88.15 that I ran in December at Keyworth. At around 5.5 miles I passed a
runner wearing a walkman who stopped to adjust it! Come on, this is supposed to
be a race, what do you need a
walkman for? 6th mile 6.42, 7th 7.09, 8th 6.20,
I was starting to feel tired by now and the first runners started to come past
me :-( At 8.5 miles I saw Olly and his wife spectating and they gave me a cheer,
9th mile took 6.35 and 10th mile took 6.38 and there was a bit of rain in the
air, 10 miles in 1h07.42, I thought 88 minutes was still on but by now the
runners were very spread out. 11th mile 6.48, I passed a lady in green shorts
here but after her I couldn't see anyone else ahead. Onto a bike path just
before 12 miles, I knew there was a mile to go along the path before the finish,
12th mile 7.10. Very tired by now but I kept plugging away and even passed a
couple more runners at 12.75 miles. Back onto the road, 13th mile took 7.12 and
speeded up to cross the line in 1h29.33, 136th finisher and 18th in the 30-34
age group, over 3000 entered the 1/2 marathon and 5km.
Rather tired on
finishing, at least I broke 90 minutes, not bad with all the travelling around
we've been doing. I was met at the end of the finish funnel by a smiling
Shelley :-) I'll let her tell her own race story. Got a drink,
jogged 1/4 mile back to the car to get some clean dry clothes then back to
the finish area. We had a nice chat with Olly, Olly was 5th in the half-marathon
in 97 but was just over an illness so he decided to give the race a miss.
After the race there were plenty of "goomies", loads of bagels and fruit as well
as something like a powerbar which tasted like sugar flavoured plasticene. Not a
bad run, I
couldn't go on a holiday this long without a race. The
half-marathon cost me US$26 to enter, about 16 UK pounds, the same entry fee as
the London Marathon! Was it worth it? Well for my $26 I got a flat fast if
rather boring suburban course with clocks at every mile marker, very nice but I
would have preferred accurate mile markers instead. There were plenty of drinks
stations and lots of food at the end and we all got a race t-shirt covered in
adverts. Not a race I would go out of my way to do again. Anyway here's
Shelley's race report.
Race Report 5k
We got there plenty
early, so there was plenty of time to warm up and then plenty to spare to look
around at the spectacle. They seem to put on quite a show at US races, lots of
stands to look at and the pep squad from the local high school was there. I
didn't notice any children of people who I grew up with. They're probably all
gone and a totally new group is there who doesn't even know there were ever jack
rabbits in Irvine. When I got to the start there was a whole group of people who
appeared to be all training for the LA
marathon and had some kind of leader
or coach who was putting them through stretches and giving them advice. He
seemed sort of military-like and reminded me of my worst associations of Orange
County coaches and this didn't help my general feelings is discomfort about the
whole matter.
I still couldn't quite get myself in the mood for a
race, and then there were all these delays, like the playing of the national
anthem and all sorts of credits to give and hoopla. What use was it to warm up
if we were going to have to wait so long to start. There was a big crowd there
even for the 5k, so I knew there was no way I was going to be able to seriously
race it for a good time, so that gave me an excuse to not take it very
seriously, but still I had promised myself to once a week to some kind of fast
shorter run like this, so I felt I needed to put some kind of effort into it,
but I was having trouble getting motivated even for that. There was a young guy,
high school age next to me and I asked him what pace he thought he would go, and
he said quite modestly, ONLY about 6 or 7 minute. He didn't look like a serious
runner, but he was a young fit looking kid, so I figured it was possible and
that I had better not try to run with him. He asked me if I was racing it, or if
I was just doing it for fun, and I told him I was just doing it for fun,
since
certainly my speed in comparison to his didn't make me seem like a very
serious competitor. It was his second race. It was quite crowded and there were
people of all different speeds around me.
Finally we were off. Like in
Tony's race the first half mile was slow, but that makes a bit more difference
in a 5k than in a HM, but at least it kept me from going out too fast. I had
very little idea of my pace partly because of it for all I knew thought I could
have just been feeling unmotivated and doing no more than 9 min pace, so I was
relieved to see that I reached mile 1 at 7:38. After that I picked up the pace a
bit hoping that maybe I could keep up 7:30 pace for the rest of the race, but I
didn't think I had picked up the pace that much, so I was quite surprised and
excited to see that I had reached the mile two mark at about 14:45. I was
getting pretty tired by then, but I pushed myself to keep going thinking that I
just might be able to break 23 if I kept it up. But unfortunately I was foiled
by bad mile markings and mile 3 was much longer than mile 2, but still under the
circumstances I didn't do bad. 23:40, an event PB by a whole 3 seconds, the best
5k I had done before
this was the one I did with Charlie quite a while ago. I
have done a faster 5k during a 10k and I think also in training runs, but it was
still an event PB, and it was also 21 seconds faster than I did in George's race
a week before, so I'm gradually making a comeback. Look out Becky!
The
big surprise, though, happened after Tony finished his race and I looked up the
results. I was 4th in my age group and they gave out prizes to the first 3, so I
just had to look up and see how close I came. It turned out that the 3rd place
did 23:38. I had missed a prize by just 2 seconds and I didn't know whether to
be excited about how close or disappointed that I had run just that little bit
faster. But it was fun, and I felt again like a runner, and one more thing I
forgot to mention, remember that kid who I was standing with? I beat him, and he
congratulated me after the race and said he enjoyed running
with me, but then
he couldn't chat with me any longer because he had to meet his parents. It
turned out he was a volleyball player doing some running to get fit and he
didn't even know what 6 or 7 min pace was.
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