"Twilight 5K" or "Streaks are Made to be Broken"

I had hoped to get out on Friday evening for a 10 mile run to get it out of the way, so that I could rest up for the 5K that was scheduled for Saturday night. Of course, I didn't make it out, so early Saturday morning, I got out there with the plan to go 10 miles. It was still relatively cool in the early morning, and I was feeling pretty good after 10, so I tacked another 5 miles and did some strides at the end just to make sure everything was firing properly for the 5K. So in all I did 15 miles in the morning.

The run itself was slow and done on soft trails to try and keep my legs as fresh as possible for later on. The strides at the end were probably the key to the whole run. The first one I did was painful. The legs were just stuck into that slow rhythm and didn't want to go fast. The second was better, and by the 10th one, everything was back to normal and ready to go. I never was really a big believer in strides, until I started doing them. Now I see their usefulness and unless you really don't care about your shorter distance speed at all (which may be the case for some runners), you really should try and do them after some of your easier runs.

I spent the rest of the day trying to recover as best I could and to stay out of the heat. I pretty much was either in the house or in the pool for the rest of the day. Not a bad job if you can get it.

By game time the temps were in the 90's and it was humid. Pretty much what you would expect for July evening in the Chicago area. I had a couple of streaks that I was trying to keep alive in this race. First off, I had won this particular race the last 2 years. I wanted to keep that going for sure. As I mentioned in my last post, this race is kind of special for me. I especially like it because my whole family can walk to the finish line and see me at the start and the finish. Now that my daughter is starting to get some concept of what this running thing is, it's kind of cool to see her cheering me on. The second streak was a bit of a fluke, but I had actually won the last 3 races I had entered. They were all local small races, so I'm not exactly ready to rival Edwin Moses or anything, but it's nice to win regardless of the race, so I'll take it. Finally, I have a PR streak of something like 15 races. Basically, every race that I've run in the past 2 years has been a PR for whatever the distance was that I was racing. However, as those PRs continue to get lower, the streak becomes harder and harder to keep going. The first two streaks I was fairly confident about extending, but the last one was gonna be tough. I had just set my 5K PR less than 2 weeks ago, so it was gonna be hard to best that time when it was going to be 25 degrees hotter for this race.

So with that huge build-up, I'll make the actual race report nice and short. I did win, but my time was 16:41, it was no PR. I went out hard and hit the first mile in 5:08, but I was really fighting it after about a mile and a half. The two mile split was 10:31 (5:23 mile), and with a final time of 16:41, I think that brings my last mile to about a 5:40. Yeah, I died in the heat.

After the race we stuck around the finish line to watch one of my friends finish his first race since high school. He hit his goal of sub 25 and actually went home with an age group trophy. Not too bad. Luckily for me, they were saving the real swag for the winner.

The last two years I got some decent stuff for winnning the race. The first year it was a $80 gift certificate to a local running store. Last year, they took a step-back and gave away a free sitting and portrait at a local photography studio (a supposed $115 value). So I wasn't sure what to expect this year. It turned out to be quite a coup. Basically, it was a bag full of gift certificates for local restaraunts, a couple of local running stores, and The Home Depot. In total, the value of all the GC's was almost $300. Nice. For once in my running life, I was able to justify the $22 entry fee to my wife. Now, how to spend the Home Depot cards without forcing myself into too much do-it-yourself hard work....