Luke - 9

Born To Run Challenge 5k, 16:26 (1st).

So apparently it's hard to run fast without sleeping.

I worked 4am-4pm Monday through Friday this week, and though I always tried to get to bed by 7 (7pm-3am is 8 hours), I usually got there around 9:30, for an average of 5.5 hours of sleep a night. I need like 9 I think. Last week's race went really well on a slightly less than ideal amount of sleep, so I thought I might be able to pull out a good one this week as well. Went to bed at 8 on Friday night and woke up at 7 for the 9am race, so I at least got a little bit back. I forgot to make tea right when I got up so I ended up going without, which I do think hurt me a bit. Other than that was feeling all right, it was already 52º when I left to warmup, and my legs didn't feel completely dead as they often do at the start of a run.

At the start I saw Josh Gordon, who would be running the 15k, since Saturdays are his long tempo days, and he said it looked like there wouldn't be anyone for me to run with...apparently a lot of the UO Running Club was out at the coast for the weekend. There was one guy there in a yellow Hackers jersey (I realized when talking to him afterward that he was the guy that was right behind me for a bit in this race but did the 5k) and Josh said he would probably be with me for a mile or so and then would drop back. At the start the guy was giving final instructions and I tuned out for about 5 seconds and pretty much mid sentence the horn went off, and I don't think I was the only one to be surprised. I was, however, probably the only one to say "Jesus!" out loud and sprint off.

I went right to the front, as usual, and didn't hear anyone behind me after a bit. We got out onto the bike path and I looked at my watch as we passed one of the path's quarter-mile markers and saw 0:41. A couple seconds later I could hear someone behind me and I figured it was the Hacker though I don't know if I actually ever saw him. At the next quarter-mile marker my watch was at 2:00, so I was at 79 seconds, which is 3-4 seconds slower than I wanted to be, so I sped up a bit, and from then on didn't hear anyone behind me. Next two quarters were 77 but I just couldn't really go any faster. Passed the mile mark at 5:19 and tried to keep speeding up. I think the next quarter I saw was another 79, and then I got to the turn-around (it was an out-and-back course). I knew it would be the turn-around because I had been keeping track of my pace so closely, but the arrow on the ground was off to the side, small, and smudged, so you couldn't really tell. There were a couple girls in lawn chairs behind a table of water cups, and after I turned around they were like, "Yeah this is where you turn around. You want water?" Anyway I took my split there and it was 8:15, so obviously nowhere near where I needed to be (my goal was 15:40 and my PR is 16:02...even my pace from last weekend's 8k was 16:17). Passed the Hackers guy about 15 seconds later, and Josh Gordon was in third, and after that there was a group of girls. My time for the second mile was 5:20, though I didn't really know because I had taken the split at halfway also. Most of the people heading out cheered for me, which probably helped slightly, although I did have to shout out once to a group taking up the whole path and not really paying attention, and had to dodge a few other people too, instead of taking the tangents as I was able to do in the first half. Third mile was 5:16, so slightly better but still damn slow, and then :30 for the last .1 for a 16:26.

Hackers guy came in a minute later, and then it was like five minute before anyone else came through. A couple boys came in from the back of the finish chute, having accidentally cut off a chunk of the course, and then the group of girls came in about 4 minutes behind where they would normally have been, because apparently by the time they got to the turn-around, the two course marshal girls there had wandered off, and when the runners turned around on their own a quarter-mile or more later, the girls saw them at some point and said, "Oh you shouldn't have gone this far," and giggled. So that sucks a bit for them, and they were a bit mad.

At the finish they had chocolate milk again, this time in pints, and big baskets of really good muffins alongside the bananas instead of stale bagels...so I had a pint of chocolate milk, 4 blueberry muffins, one cranberry muffin, one poppyseed muffin, and a half a banana. For winning I got the worst prize I have ever gotten, which is fitting since I raced so poorly. It was a free one-month membership to a fitness center that's about 4 miles away, and a free tanning session there. Ha, priceless. I figure I'll try to give them away to someone at work.

Ridgeline Ramble 20k next week for my last race of the season. Hopefully I'll be able to get a bit more sleep this week--I'm probably going to work 4-4 M-W and then 5:30-4 the last two days of the week...and I'll really try to get to bed earlier each night, too.