Luke - 7

5k race!

My warmup wasn't quite as long as I'd prefer, but not too bad.  Lined up at the front with my friend Sam who was taking Chris' spot.  He said he was shooting for sub-6 pace, so 18:42, and as we were about to start he was like "I'm gonna go to the back..." and I was like, uh, no, you're gonna stay up here.  He was like, "Don't they do it by time?  I don't want to start in front of a bunch of people that are gonna beat me."  I had to tell him that he would most certainly be top 20, and that since the start line fit that many people on it, he would be very fine starting right at the front.

The pancake was running, of course, and a guy I sorta know who is a lot faster than me was dressed as a fork (shirtless, duct tape hat thing that sorta looked like a fork...pretty clever I guess) and also the Nesquik Rabbit was running.  Because the fork was running I knew I wouldn't win.  Didn't care, just wanted to beat the pancake.

The start was one of the fastest I've ever been in.  Those guys took off at sub-4 pace before slowing down to their regular race pace about 100m in.  The start was slightly uphill, which was good because the finish was down the same road so I knew it'd be downhill.  The finish was actually a block past the start, so there was an even steeper bit of downhill right at the end.

I was in 6th about a quarter mile in, and I didn't know it, but the pancake was right behind me (I will link a video at the end of this post).  About a half mile in I passed a guy like he was standing still.  I figured he went out way above his ability.  Just after I passed him, the course took a right turn, and I was like "wait, this isn't the road I thought we turned on..."  I thought the course went around Skinner's Butte (heh heh funny name), but apparently it went over!  Terribly steep hill, 200-300m long.  Funny thing is when Sam and I were looking for parking he asked if we saw this hill and I was like "Good thing we don't have to go up here, that would suck."  (I apologized to him after the race..)

After the downhill there's a comparable downhill, slightly less steep and longer (which is how courses should be: I'd rather have steep uphill than steep downhill, and I'd rather have gradual downhill than any uphill).  I caught another guy at the bottom of that hill to get into 4th place at the first mile.  My first mile split was 5:31.  Definitely a bit slow, because of the hill.  The second mile I ran alone.  At points I could see the top 3, but they were a ways ahead of me, fork in first, a guy in blue in second about 30 seconds back, and a guy in red another 5 seconds back.  Just before the second mile marker, there's a left hand turn, and that's where I could see everyone in front of me.  They looked deceptively close.  When I turned the corner I looked behind me and saw the pancake way too close to me!  I was thinking oh man that would suck if he beat me...I'd be so embarrassed, I've told like everyone that I'm gonna beat this pancake.  And I wasn't feeling very fast even in the flat second mile.  Came through at 5:29 and was like uuuugggghhhh I'm dying.

In the third mile I didn't see the pancake behind me when I made the turns, but I hadn't really looked.  I was just focused on keeping up the pace.  I heard someone behind me at probably a little before 2.5 miles...thought briefly about slowing down and drafting off of them, but then realized that would have been a terrible idea.  Kept pushing towards the finish, came through mile 3 at 5:34, but I'm sure the sign was in the wrong place--more on that later.  I wasn't sure how close whoever was behind me was.  As I was coming down the hill to the finish the crowd was cheering pretty loud and it seemed like they were cheering at a race, not just cheering for a finisher.  I heard someone say something like "Come on, reel him in," so I figured there must have been someone behind me.  I kicked hard and the downhill definitely helped.  I crossed the line at 16:56, which would be a 22-second last .1, which is faster than I can go, so I'm pretty sure the 3rd mile marker was a little bit off, maybe 10 seconds.

The person who finished right behind me was the guy I'd passed a half a mile into the race, who I thought had gone out way too fast.  According to the results I beat him by .5 seconds.  The pancake was just over 30 seconds back, in 6th place at 17:31.  The surprise of the day was Sam "Christopher Breen from Lake Oswego" Callero, who finished in 18:14 for eighth place!  I thought his 6-minute pace was optimistic and figured the hill would slow him down to maybe mid- to high-19s, but he managed 5:53 pace.  His training was running about 5k, give or take, pretty fast, four times a week, for a few months.  It's not fair how talented he is.  If he trained for it he could probably beat me a year from now.

At the awards ceremony, I got second in my age group and Sam got third--if he'd been in his own age group, 20-24 instead of Chris' 25-29, he would have been 4th--and we got little plaques.  They had the 5 people who beat the pancake come up to receive their "year's supply of pancake mix", but they hadn't brought enough I guess, because instead of the promised 40 pounds, the top 2 finishers got 3 7-pound bags and the other 3 of us got 2 7-pound bags.  I guess they figured only 2 people would beat Flap Jack, and didn't have a backup plan so they just divided the two year's supplies among five of us.  I'm sure I'm the only one who cared.

There are some videos up online:

The Start shows the Nesquik Rabbit a bit, and you can see me in the all black, and the pancake close behind me.

The Finish has a good shot of The Fork, and also a good view of my finish, with accompanying announcing, and then the hot-shot Flap Jack showing off for the crowd.  Also watch Sam's finish to hear Chris' name.

5:31, 5:29, 5:34, :22 = 16:56

I felt like death at the end of the race...not sure right now whether I'll do the 5k next Saturday or not.  I'd probably PR slightly since it's flatter, but I doubt it'd feel good.  I'm tempted to take my not-great time from this race and then when I race a 5k next year I'll show a lot of improvement...