Dave – 5 mile or 50K race – Born to Run

After my comeback race, a 5K just before Christmas I set this last weekend as my next race at the Clearwater Distance Classic, initially planning on running the 5 mile race. The week before we had our 100 mile bike ride that I completed on the ElliptiGo, I would have preferred a little taper but still had time to recover during the week. I ran with the Miami running group Tuesday, legs felt heavy but I still managed a good pace. I took Wednesday off as I was flying to Mississippi for a meeting and would run early Thursday morning. I get up, get to the front of the Casino hotel as I was staying at, weather 40 degrees and raining. I felt like turning around and going back to bed, I went to start my watch and realized I had forgot it, I knew if I went up I probably wouldn’t come down so set of. It’s amazing how quickly your mind changes, within a minute running through a couple of puddles and hitting the grass on a deserted golf course I felt great. I ran the fairways, up to the greens and then to the tee-off and on to the next course. I ran for about 40 minutes, so probably about 5 miles on nice soft grass, cool weather and green scenery, not your everyday Florida run.

I just bought my wife a Kindle for Christmas and it came with a months free trial of Audible. I decided to listen to Born To Run as I had heard it was a good book. Typically I just listen to the radio on my long drive down from Tampa to Miami so the weekend leading up to the trip I started to listen to the book. I really enjoyed the book and looked forward to when I would be able to listen more. So on my trip to Mississippi from Miami and then back to Tampa I continued to listen to the book. I don’t drink the day before a race so as I would be home early I texted my old coach Ray to see if he was available for dinner. He was so we went to a local Sushi restaurant. By this time I was still high on the book and longing to run my first ultra. The furthest I had ran in the previous 18 months was 9 miles about 4 weeks ago and my average weekly run total mileage was now up to about 15 miles so why was I even considering running 31.1 miles in 2 days time. My coach was surprised but didn’t tell me not to do it. He knew how much I’ve been cross training and how fit I was. My wife told me I was stupid, she’s always right, but I was still intrigued. The following morning I got up and was still leaning towards running the 50K, I even went to our running groups Facebook page and typed a post saying I was in. I went to another tab and came back and was going to another site when it asked if I wanted to leave the page. I hadn’t hit Post so it was still sitting there. I took that as a sign that the time wasn’t right. To be honest I wasn’t sure I could even run the 5 Mile race at speed and was thinking running 50K at a slower pace may be an option. I had no idea how my hip would hold out for either event as it’s been sore on and off for a couple of weeks as I started picking up mileage and speed and had to keep resting before it got worse. So I drove down to the expo and signed up for the 5 mile race, I think I knew that was the right decision and the only way I would know if I was ready would be to run it. I texted Mark the young guy from the running club to see if he was going to join me but he chickened out saying he thought I would beat him.

I drove down tot he race, jogged a little and stretched before the race and then joined the group of about 2,000 runners near the front, the start of the 5 mile, half, full and ultra all starting together. It was good to see several faces I used to compete against a couple of years earlier. The horn blasted and we were off, about half a mile in on to the first bridge. The high school boys I used to run with were there so I hung with them, several were doing the half and one the 5 mile. The pace was quick and by mile 2 I could feel myself getting tired, I concentrated on keeping my cadence high as I think that has helped me most in my recovery. By the end of the race my average cadence was 183, up from the low 150’s a couple of years before. At the turn I could see there were just 6 runners ahead of me from the field of over 500 in the 5 mile race. I pushed hard and continued to run approaching the bridge for the second time. Parker from the high school was about 10 yards ahead of me as we hot the bridge but I started tiring and he pushed ahead with sights on tracking down 2 runners ahead of him. I kept going and thought I had slowed down a lot but surprisingly my mile times were all very consistent. Down the other side I tried to pick up speed and for the last 100 yards stepped up to a sprint. I finished seventh overall with a gun time of 33:33, 6:43 mile average. I felt pretty good and was pleased with my time and picked up 1st place in the Masters Division. My first ultra will have to wait, I’m glad my injury taught me something otherwise I would have probably attempted it and put myself back on the injury roster. Again, listen to your body, only increase your mileage slowly and rest if your hip hurts. I’m hoping to step up to a half marathon mid March but will see how my training is.