Runnin' to Beat the Blues

Man, I need to catch up on my race recaps/reviews being that this race was like four weeks ago.  Laziness I guess.  But anyway, this was my third year running the Runnin' to beat the Blues 5k, which benefits the Mental Health Association of Middle Tennessee.  I was really nervous about running this race because my training had took a huge nose dive.  At the bare minimum, I wanted to run around tempo effort but I really didn't know how fast that would be.  Prior to the nose dive, I was planning on running around 10k effort, followed by either a short, intense fartlek or coming back to double in the mile a little while later.

The race is run entirely through Centennial Park, which means it's pretty much dead flat, with a ton of turns. During the portions with the long straightaways, you can really get moving, but there's too many turns to make it a PR type course.

I've been fortunate enough to win this race the past two years, but you never know who will show up.  This year, two guys stuck out to me.  Ted Towse is always pretty tough but I knew he wasn't in his top shape.  I was hoping that if I set a hard pace and bluffed a bit, he would let me go. The other guy, Max Paquette, is a sub 70 half marathoner who has run a fast 1500m before.  I met him a couple years ago at the Crazy 8's 8k and felt like he could be tough to beat.  My plan for him was the same....run hard from the gun and hope he focused on his battle with Ted rather than trying to chase me down.

When we got going, I shot out pretty quickly.  The first mile makes a loop around the park and is by far the fastest mile in the park.  I wasn't feeling too hot but was really surprised when I went through the first mile in 4:42.  I had about a 30-40m lead and knew I couldn't get too mentally complacent.

I couldn't remember the course too well and the biker with me wasn't expecting to be the lead biker because the other two shot off like maniacs at the start of the race and they weren't in site at all.  Who knows what that was about? He was really nervous because he didn't know the course either but fortunately, there were signs everywhere, which made it easy to follow.

I lost a bit of time in the second mile and came through in 4:56.  Well, a lot of time I guess.  At this point, I had a somewhat comfortable lead, so I tried to keep it around tempo effort and not overdue things, ran the last mile in 5:06 and finished up in 15:15.

I was happy with my performance because I felt like 15:30 would be tough.  One of my favorite things about this race is that they always have decent post-race food.  I chowed down on pastries, yogurt and heck, they even had a cotton candy machine which is major bonus points.  All in all, this is a fun and well-run race that I plan on coming back to.

Runnin' to Beat the Blues

I ran this race last year and had a good experience, so I decided to give it another go. It was only a week after Tom King but since it was a 5k, I was hoping it would serve as some good speedwork. Not to mention, the course is nearly completely flat and takes place at Centennial Park, where I've run some hard workouts in the past.

My goal was to run the race as a tempo run and run somewhere between 15:30-15:45. If I had to, I was prepared to run all-out but I was hoping I would be able to get the wheels moving, while staying under control. While warming up, I noticed that Ken Sullivan was racing. I knew that he ran a 3:45 1500m a couple of years ago and recently moved to Nashville. I knew he wasn't in serious training mode but I took notice of him because who wants to get in a kick with a guy who has run a little bit over four minutes in the mile?

When it was time to head to the line, I didn't see any of the usual suspects, so I knew Ken would be my main competition. Because my training has been geared towards longer stuff and the fact that he was just now getting back into consistent training, my goal was to try and break him by two miles and take it from there.

When the gun went off, I got out slowly while Ken got out pretty quickly. I immediately closed the gap and took the lead. I could tell we were really rolling and I'm sure we were close to 2:20 for the first half mile. At this point, I started to hurt and didn't like it. When racing the longer stuff, you stay patient and relaxed while pushing the pace. While pain doesn't settle in right away, you never feel that comfortable. However, this was something fast and intense and the early pain took me surprise. What it boils down to is that I've forgot how much 5ks HURT.

Shortly before the mile, I started to gap him a bit and hit the mile with a 3-4 second lead in 4:50, which is right at 15:00 pace. It felt hard but I was still somewhat in control. For a second I debated making a run at sub 15 because I haven't broken 15 in an official 5k since 2005 (even though I'm pretty sure I ran a sub 15 5k during my Team Nashville 10 mile race this past fall), but I listened to the voice of reason and backed off a bit.

Ken was still pretty close to me, so I relaxed a tiny bit, while making sure I kept the pace quick. I put a few more seconds on him during the second mile and split 5:07. At this point, I slowly began to back off the pace for a bit before picking it back up again to finish in 15:44, which gave me a 5:16 mile average for my final 1.1 miles. It turns out that we added a loop in the last mile and several people had measured the course as 3.2 miles on their GPS, which theortically is a large chunk of time. However, with the large number of turns in this race, the GPS most likely isn't very reliable and based off the effort of my last mile, I felt the extra loop added 10-15 seconds, depending on the speed of the runner.

Other than that glitch, it was a great day to race. My friend's wife, Elizabeth Berry, won the women's division in 18:09 and what really impressed me was that the 2nd and 3rd place "women" were only 13 and 11 years old. The post race food is pretty decent with bagels, yogurt, granola bars and other random stuff and it was fun to watch the people race the mile, which took place after the 5k. My friend, John Woodman, won that in 5:03 and 57 year-old David Schamanski nearly got 3rd before being nipped at the line by a guy nearly 20 years younger than him. The 11 year old who took 3rd in the 5k, won the women's mile in 6:20 but I was most impressed with the seven year old who took 3rd in 7:02. Impressive!

Now it's back to training mode and some more base mileage. I'm not sure when my next "key" race will be but as of now, I'm aiming for the Knoxville Marathon in two weeks.

Runnin' to Beat the Blues

I didn't know much about this race, except it takes place entirely in Centennial Park. That meant it would be almost completely flat, most likely with a ton of turns. Right after Tom King, my training took a pretty big nose dive and I was having trouble running anything much faster than 5:40 pace. I thought that my iron could be getting low again, so I doubled on my dosage for a while and was hoping for a good time to get my head on a little more straight.

I wasn't sure who would show up but my goal was to take out the race in around 4:50 for the first mile and see if I could run under 15:20. When I checked the weather that morning, it showed that some strong rain and wind was coming in, along with some chilly temperatures. I felt really good on my warm-up and was feeling optimistic about my chances.

When the gun went off, I took a couple of hundred meters to find my rhythm. I felt like I was moving pretty quickly and was alone out front. I felt like I was going to make a run at a sub 4:50 first mile and I was surprised when I hit 4:54. It felt much faster than my 4:57 at Tom King, so I was a little frustrated. I tried to grit down and push some more and felt like I was still around 5:00 pace.

There was a confusing part in the second mile and one of the monitors let me know I missed a turn. I got back on course but lost around 20 seconds or so with the confusion and having to run back on course. At this time, I knew my shot at a decent time was out the window, so I decided to just run a steady effort and not kill myself. I hit two miles in 10:22, which gave me a 5:28 second mile and I kept a solid effort to finish in 16:08 to win by a little over a minute.

I was happy to win the course but was hoping to run a faster time to give me some more confidence, especially since the Country Music Marathon is about a month away. Oh well, back to the grind.