Steve - 5

It's been awhile since I have been posted anything, but I have been running. I'll start with the most recent. Today was the L.A. Marathon, and of course I was participating in the 5k portion. It was a late start at 8:30 so I was expecting some pretty hot conditions. Luckily it was overcast until about 11 am, which actually was great for all the Marathon participants. We stayed in a nice hotel in downtown L.A. about a mile from the race. My parents were visiting, so we(myself and the wife, who I don't think I mentioned before) decided to stay there the whole weekend. Ok, so I'm kind of jumping around. Anyway the marathon was slated to start an hour before the 5k a block from our hotel. We had a great view out of our window of the start. It was pretty amazing seeing tens of thousands of people lined up. I have some cool pictures of it that I'll post up. Ok, so after watching the start from our room, we headed down to the start. Was a bit annoying that there weren't any bathrooms near the start, but what can you do. I guess all the portabodies in Los Angeles were spread out for the marathoners. I got a decent warmup and strides and drills and stuff and got to the front of the pack for the start. I was talking to a guy next to me who said he was going to run in the 15:30 range, but even at the front there were overweight people and other slow looking runners. Ridiculous. Fortunately, when the gun went off I was able to waste minimal time getting in to my race pace. OK, so the start is on Chick Hearn Ct. right near Staples Center and the L.A. Convention Center. After the first 50 meters we take a right onto Figueroa and head down for an out-and-back. As soon as we turned onto Figueroa, literally 30 seconds into the race or so, we hit a water station, since we were at mile 1 for the Marathon. They hadn't bothered to change the water station for the 5K. So they were trying to give us water after 30 seconds of running on a relatively cold day for L.A.'s standards. Suffice to say, not a lot of water was consumed by the faster competitors at this station. Later, my Dad, who also ran in the race, told me someone asked him if they had already run a mile when they hit that water station, perhaps .1 miles into the race at the absolute must.

Well, pushing this inconvenience aside, I made sure I didn't start too slow and tried to get into my 6:30 or so minute/mile pace. I stayed with another older runner who I figured would probably run even splits the whole way, which was perfect for me. After about 6 minutes, I realized that there probably wasn't going to be a mile marker for mile 1. So I just had to go by feel. I upped my effort a bit, since I wanted to run slightly negative miles, even I wouldn't have a record of it. When my watch hit 10 minutes and we hadn't turned around, I got a bit worried. I should have been at least close to turning around by this point. On the course map, we were supposed to turn at 32nd street. However, we went 2 blocks past 32nd and turned at Jefferson. My time at the turn was 11:2x. I knew something had to be wrong. Well, I thought maybe the finish got moved up and this wasn't the halfway point. I focused on the older gentleman in front of me to make sure I didn't slow down. Again, no mile marker for the second mile. I figured that would be the case after the first mile. 35 dollars for this race and no mile markers! I felt like had I run the first two miles in about 13 minutes. The older gentleman put a bit of distance on me in the third mile. As we approached downtown there was no sign of the finish with 19 minutes elapsed. Bad sign. Either I'm slower than I thought or the course is long. I was starting to really wear down by this point, but I tried to resist slowing down as much as I could. I passed a girl with about 1/3 of a mile left and someone yelled something to the girl that she was in second place for the women. Well that was a good sign, I thought. There are usually at least 3-4 women who run sub-20 in most 5ks I run. The finish was one block up from the start and when I got the turn for the last 50 meters I was really feeling it. I kicked with the minimal reserves left in the tank and glanced at the clock to see 21:52 as I crossed the mat. No way that was a 5k, I told myself. I knew we had to have run at least an extra 400 meters. The wife came in about 1:30 to 2:00 minutes later than she usually does and my Dad was just behind her. Oh, also I forgot to mention that they had a water station set up about 500 meters from the finish. Again, who needs water right before you finish a 5k? For anyone who is actually running in the race, it makes no sense! I was pretty disappointed with the time and the management of the race itself, but what can you do?

Fast forward 5 hours. First page I go to is Gmaps Pedometer. Without including the turns at the start and finish, the course measures out 3.31 miles. So conservatively, we ran at least 3.4 miles. If you apply the pace I ran for 3.31, it translates to about a 20:30 5k. Next stop is the L.A. Marathon 5k results page to confirm my time of 21:52. I find the older runner who finished ahead of me by about 15 seconds. I'm sure he's a regular race participant. So I check out his previous races through Athlinks and find his most recent 5k. He ran about 1:20 faster a month ago. Good sign. Now time for some math. So I divide his time from today's race by this race from last month. I get the value of 1.083. So this the multiplier of your true 5k time to get your L.A. Marathon 5k time. To verify this number, I do the same for another runner who finished near me. I get almost exactly the same number. So when you divide my time of 21:52 by 1.083 you get.......20:11. So the math may be flawed and the sample size small, but I will stand by them! And yes, I do realize I'm probably the only person who participated in this race who would go to these lengths.

I will not be running the L.A. Marathon 5k next year.