Another week, another racing post. I can hear you groaning now gentle readers. I would apologize, but I’m ate up with running, particularly trail running, right now. If I’m not out running I’m thinking about running, reading about running, or watching videos/reading blogs for inspiration in my workouts and on my runs. Sunday, July 8th brought the latest, my second 5K in a week–and my second 5K ever!
Gotta admit that I was as worried about this one, taking place in broad daylight, as I was about last weekend’s night run. What had me worried? Oh, only the fact that the race page describes the race thus:
Beware: It’s the toughest 5K trail run in the Midwest!
Out and back course on rocky, rooty, and hilly bridle trails & single-track trails. These trails aren’t “sissy” groomed or paved trails; they’re the real thing.
and of course the slogan:
The PsychoPath of least resistance is uphill on the way back.
Having run two Trail Nerds events in the last month, both of which had hills that worked this newbie-runner over, I was expecting to get a real challenge in this one.
And boy did I ever.
“Alms for the runner? Alms for the runner?”
I arrived about 45 minutes before race time and did some warm-up walking and stretching while keeping my eye on the start of the race path which appeared to go immediately uphill. The faster runners were warned (and I listened anyway, lol!) that the descent after the first big hill was quite severe and that they should ease off the pedal upon cresting the hill. It was good advice that held for me through the entire event.
This was one hilly, rocky course. The hills went up at steep inclines and went down at steep inclines, and although it may seem silly to say so, I almost felt it was harder going downhill because trying to keep yourself under control on those downhills was rough.
Going into the race I of course desperately wanted to beat the time of my first 5K, but given my understanding of this course I truly believed that I would be lucky to top the time I got running a much less intimidating course in the dark.
Nevertheless, I had my ‘finish in under 40 minutes’ goal in mind and after a week of studying various videos on proper hill running form and technique I was determined to practice what I had learned (short, close steps on the uphills, longer strides on the downhills depending on how technical the trail was). And I did that. I did my best to keep good running form going up the hills and until the end I did pretty well with that. By the end I was leaning waaay into those uphills and pushing myself to just keep going. I had a dream of not walking at all but that didn’t happen. I didn’t walk for the first half of the race, but the even more intense second half found me walking partway up two hills. Still, I ran half or more of those hills before succumbing to the urge to power hike and that felt like an accomplishment.
During the occasional level moments of the path I often felt like I didn’t have the reserves to make up for lost time and yet I willed myself to at least keep an even pace. I also knew that I would have nothing in the tank for a sprint at the end.
WRONG!!!
When I saw the finish approaching it was like someone stoked my internal fire because I just took off like a shot, posture race-perfect and speed good. When I rounded a curve and saw the time on the clock I smiled HUGELY inside and kicked it up even more.
My finish time: 32:07. My per mile average: 10:22. I was amazed. I was elated, really, and disappointed at the same time. Mostly I was elated, but of course I couldn’t help but think that just a tiny bit more effort would have found me at 10 or sub-10 minute miles on what will probably be the roughest 5K course I do all year. Argh! Still, I honestly was not bummed at all because I did not dream I would do this well. It is now my PR for this race and I cannot wait to do it again to see if I can beat it.
There were some really impressive, fast runners out there today. Many of them were in my age group and I feel honored to have been on the same course with these folks.
“Able to leap finish lines in a single bound!”
I finished 30th out of 75 and 6th out of 12 in my gender/age group. I was pretty pleased with that, especially given how the guys at or near my age group fared. 9 out of the top 10 finishers were 35 and above, with the top 5 being 39, 48, 46, 58, and 44. Wow! I mean really, Wow!
This was so much fun today. Afterwards I hung out for awhile to cool down, chatted with a really sweet couple who finished right behind me, cheered for the others coming in and just soaked in the good vibes of being part of something that I wouldn’t have fathomed being a part of this time last year. I’m hoping to get a chance to be a volunteer next weekend at the Psycho Psummer 10 mile, 20 mile, and 50K race next weekend. At this point in my running that is too big of a race for me to attempt, but I would love to do my part to help make the experience special for those who are doing it.
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Earlier this week, inspired by posts by Amanda and Tim, I decided to craft some goals for myself. Now that I’ve reached my target weight and have screwed up my courage to run a few races, I wanted to set some goals that would help me focus my day-to-day fitness regimen. A few of these are mental goals I set for myself when I first went out and bought running shoes. The bold ones, with dates, are those I’ve accomplished. The others are things I am setting my sites on.
I’ve also broke these out into “Training” goals and “Racing/Running” goals.
And to clarify, when I say “flat surface” it could be any kind of largely level running course vs. the hilly, single-track “trails” I’ve been racing on.
- Training
Run 5 miles flat surface (Ran 10K distance, 6.2 miles, 7/21/12)
Run 5 miles trail
Bike 10 miles flat surface
Bike 15 miles flat surface
Bike 20 miles flat surface
Run hills at least once per week
- Racing/Running
Run 5K trail (7/8/12)
Run 5K night trail (6/29/12)
Run 5K flat surface (7/28/12)
Run 5K flat surface night (7/14/12)
Run 10K flat surface
Run 10K trail
Run 10K night flat surface
Run 10K night trail
Run 5K Mud/Obstacle run
Run sub-30 minute 5K flat surface (7/14/12)
Run sub-30 minute 5K trail
Run 5K in each month of the year:
-June (6/29/12 Rock the Night Away 5K)
-July (7/08/12 Psychedelic 5K Fire Edition)
-August
-September
-October
-November
-December
-January
-February
-March
-April
-May
Those are my goals thus far. I’m sure I’ll add to them/tweak them as time passes. In the meantime, it gives me something to focus on.
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Special thanks to race director Ben Holmes and the Trail Nerds gang for another great one and to See KC Run for the free photos and the genuine good will. Frank Mance was the photographer for all but the first photo shown in this post. See KC run always makes these events extra-special. Next up for me is a non-Trail Nerd event, the Glow Run 5K on Saturday, July 14th at 9:00 p.m. in the great downtown City Market district of Kansas City. It will be interesting to see how I do on flat surface. It will also be interesting to see if the crowd is a factor in slowing me down or pushing me to race above my comfort-zone level. At any rate I’m really psyched about it.
Hope everyone has a great week!
Congrats on a great PR on this track! I am sure you will beat it next time you run this course. Those are some great goals you have going. I should probably decide on some too. I just added up my miles of cardio this week and it was 6.3 — a personal high. It feels good to finally be stepping on the gas a little harder!
I’m sort of at the ‘stepping on the gas a little harder’ phase with my workouts too and I’ve been enjoying the results. I’m sure adding hill running to my weekly workouts is going to kick my butt for awhile but it will be worth it in the end.
Fannnnntastic Carl!!! You did such a great job!!! Congrats 🙂
Thanks Chris! 🙂
This is really cool! 🙂 Makes me want to start running too 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Do it, it is so satisfying! More so than I ever imagined.
wow congratulations! I hope you leave some time for reading! lol
I’ve been reading a lot lately, but it has almost entirely been articles about running. I need to carve out some time to get my fiction reading in. I’m waaaay behind on my group read right now and feel terrible about it. Hopefully I’ll make up some ground on that tonight.
I am so excited for you and this running adventure you are on!! 🙂 There is nothing like when you fall in love with running and you will meet your goals eventually and each new success further fuels the passion!! I love reading about your new found love of running…keep it coming and keep up the amazing work!!
Thank you Kim, I’m pretty excited myself. And I couldn’t agree more with what you said. I was telling my wife last night how I can really understand how “real” athletes get addicted to competing. Even with these things, where more than anything I am just competing with myself and with the trail in an effort to conquer it, I feel almost lost when it was over, aching for the next event.
You’re sick, sick I tell you!
You look like you’re ready to administer an MiB eye test!
Nice work bro. I look forward to watching you work that list!
I probably am, lol! I don’t know how to describe it though, it is such a rush. Even when it is painful, like it was at times running this race, the feeling you have when you finish is just amazing and it lasts and lasts.
I can totally see how addicting it can be. I have a slight foot problem to get resolved then I have full intentions of getting started running as well.
You are a real inspiration and I am ready to join you!
Great! When you do, these are good resources:
http://www.fromcouchto5k.com/
http://www.goodformrunning.com
Congrats Carl!
Sticking with the training to do the 5K is more than I’ve ever done 🙂 I blame my wonky knee.
I’m trying to be good to myself with the training so I strengthen my joints rather than damage them. Found some good running-focused exercises that are supposed to help with that on the Runner’s World website.
You know, that’s one thing about training on hills the way I do – I’ve gotten really used to going down, and the steepness no longer bothers me. It gives my heart a chance to get the heart rate down, and I feel good/move faster that way. Going up still hurts though, haha!
My friend Julie here in town made a goal a few years back to do a 5K every month, and I think she made it. I thought it was a great goal, until I got to the summer months and realized that it would be incredibly difficult to do that here. One day, when I live up north again…
Congrats on another fantastic race! You’re getting so much faster in such a short amount of time! It’s very exciting. 🙂
That is certainly the point I want to get to which is why I need to do more hill training. I know it isn’t good on the joints to be braking on the way down. I don’t think I would have actually been doing much of that anyway had these been actual dirt trails, but these ones were littered with lose rocks of all sizes and I just am not confident enough in my abilities to do anything but take the cautious (if you can call careening down hill ‘cautious’) route. There were a few dirt-only downhills though and I did take advantage of them. They ended all too soon though. 🙂
Yes, it is hot enough here early in the morning, I cannot imagine doing a July or August 5K down there unless it was like at 4:30 in the morning.
I’m actually really very excited about doing some winter events this year. Some of these same trail runs I am doing now repeat in the winter months and it will be fun to run these trails again with a completely different weather situation and also will be interesting from a scenery point of view. I actually find the sleeping woods to be beautiful in the winter.
Thank you so much for all of your support and encouragement, especially just in sharing your own journey.
That is so awesome! My husband just ran his first 5K too and I was so proud of him. I used to run a lot and you are motivating me to get back into it. I’d like to work up to a half marathon.
Congrats to him! I hope he enjoyed the experience as much as I did on my first one. I know initially I had no thoughts of running anything beyond a 5K, but I can imagine that I’ll slowly work up to doing something more. Beyond a 10K though, just not sure. It seems awfully grueling at this point in time.
Great time, Carl! I am proud of you.
Thank you sweetie, sorry you couldn’t be there.
Carl,
Not really a comment on your post really but I was just struck by the juxtaposition of your two photos – the post photo and then your blog photo next to each other. It looks like two different people. You need to update the blog photo to show off your new svelt self.
A bunch of the guys in my office are doing this in October http://toughmudder.com/
I said I’d go and take photos!
I’ve watched a few tough mudder videos lately, it too looks like a whole lot of fun. A group of us are doing the Rugged Maniac one in October. Can’t wait. Cool that you get to go along and take pix, you’ll have a lot of fun watching all the craziness.
And thanks!
Can I just say that I’m amazed with all you’ve accomplished in the past few months?!! No, amazed just doesn’t cut it…more like flabbergasted!!! Seriously, friend, wow. Just wow. Though make that ENORMOUS WOW!!! Flabbergasted.
Ummm yeah, and CONGRATS!!! 😀
Aww, thanks Debi! Glad to see you’ve been back on your blog lately. Hope you and the fam are having a summer to remember.
Congratulations, Carl! You’re such an inspiration!
Thanks Vasilly, I hope to be as so many other bloggers doing similar things have been an inspiration to me.
Well done Carl. So pleased for you – exercise definitely is addictive – unfortunately I think I’m fully weaned off it at the moment! Need to rectify that methinks.
Inspirational as ever – either with your book recommendations or your exercise routines.
Lynn 😀
Thank you Lynn. It can be addictive and I’m trying to make sure to not let it get so addictive that it becomes an obsession. Everything in moderation, as it were. Still, I’d rather be doing this with my time than watching too much television or some of the other things I’ve spent time on in my life.
Good luck with all of your goals, Carl!
Thanks Kailana, so far so good!
These are some fantastic goals, and don’t worry, I’m not one who groans at another racing post! I just started another blog specifically to track my motivation because a short time ago, I started to run and I realized that I actually liked it! I listen to audiobooks while running…and I just signed up for my very first 5k on August 4th. Now, it doesn’t help that I did something screwy with my sciatica and tonight is the 4th night I haven’t run (unless you count my attempt last night and I ended up limping home). So, I’m nervous. But you are motivating me to stick with it!
I’ll definitely have to check out that other blog! You sound like you had the same experience as me. I really didn’t realize I would enjoy running so much until I did it, and then I was bit by the running bug and am now infected with a passion for it that I didn’t realize I would have.
I’m very excited for you with your first 5K coming up! I’ll be looking for your post-race thoughts. I was really nervous with my first run. Heck, I’ve been nervous before all of them thus far even though there really isn’t any reason to be. I knew I wouldn’t be the slowest one in, and even if I was it really is all about saying I’m going to do something and then following through to completion. Make sure to walk around and burn off some of that nervous energy up until the moment you line up to run on the 4th. It helps. 🙂
First off CONRGATS on running another 5K. I’m very proud of you. Sounds like you had a great time on a challenging course. Your time was amazing as well. Love the mug too.
Your goals are a good idea as well. They seem attainable and challenging. I know that I personally I had enjoy bike riding and I want to work that into my training as well in the future. My daughter and I have enjoyed biking together in the past through some trails near our home.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I was pretty surprised by my time on this very challenging trail, to be honest. I didn’t realize I was keeping up that sort of pace at all.
Yes, the mug is cool.
Thanks also about the goals. I accomplished another of them this weekend, one of my training ones, when I ran a 10K on the running trail Saturday morning. I made really good time too, finishing the distance in 1 hour, 6.5 minutes. I felt really good afterwards too. I’m going to try to keep that up once a week and then eventually sign up for a 10K run.
That’s awesome. You are really making a lot of progress in a short amount of time. I can defiently see you running a 10K before the year is over.
Me too. And I’ve pretty much made up my mind (all but paid the entry fee) to do a half-marathon on Saturday, November 10th. It is a Trail Nerd sponsored run in Shawnee Mission Park on paved trails. I’m nuts, but I think I’m going to start training for it.
Way to go, Carl! I’m impressed 🙂
Thanks Emily!!! 🙂