Luke - 12.5

I decided on Friday night to do the Butte to Butte, the local 4th of July race here. The course starts out with a mile steep uphill, then the second mile is steep downhill, and the rest of it is mostly flat, slightly downhill. There are special prizes for the first to the mile mark (King of the Hill) and first to the 2.2-mile mark (King of the Downhill), but smart racers know "the race starts at the bottom of the hill," that is, you shouldn't waste all your energy getting up the hill fast and you shouldn't let yourself fly down the hill and waste all your energy there.

I wasn't taking the race seriously (in fact, I drank the night before and didn't get to bed till 2) so I decided to treat it like a one-mile uphill race, and see how close I could be to King of the Hill. Last year's king of the hill was a friend of mine who ran a 14:10 5k, so I figured I wouldn't have a real shot at actually being first up...usually the first up is also the first down and also the first to the finish line. This is a big race in Eugene, so the fast people actually show up.

My plan was to run a slightly long route to the start for a 5-mile warmup, then run the uphill mile hard, then have an 8-mile cooldown made up of the rest of the race and the three miles home.

On the warmup I was feeling slow, which was fine, but then my stomach started hurting. It's actually been a while since I've had stomach problems (I'm now convinced they were psycho-somatic, and since school ended I've had a lot less stress) so I stopped at a portaloo and cut about a mile off the warmup so I could get to the race on time. At the start I had a couple cups of water because I realized I was pretty dehydrated. Did some strides from the start line, listened to a very slow rendition of the national anthem, and then the race finally started.

I sprinted out with the leaders, and my it was fast. I kept reminding myself to treat it like a mile race, which is a lot faster than a 5k or 10k. It has actually been a long time since I've raced anything shorter than 5k. The pace stayed fast until the base of the hill, about 250 meters in. The leaders were already 10+ meters in front of me, and there were probably 20-30 guys within 15 meters of me, so a fairly big pack up front. Going up the hill I was thinking, "Man, why'd I do this...I'm not good at uphills, I'm good at downhills." The two leaders were fairly well out of reach by halfway up the hill, and a group of three was a bit behind them, and then a bunch of us were a bit back of that. I had used Google Streetview to check out the hill, and I knew that at a certain fire hydrant there was only one stretch of hill left to the top. By the time I got to it I didn't have a chance of catching the top 5, but I made a final push anyway, and ended up in 8th or 9th at the mile mark. After passing it I slowed down and swung wide around the corner to let the guy behind me go past on the inside, and then a few seconds later thought "What the hell" and decided to run the downhill mile fast, too, since that's my specialty. So I picked it up and passed all but the top 5 within the first 600 meters or so, and then focused on the group of 3. The last guy I passed stayed with me, and at almost the 2-mile mark asked me how much downhill was left. I said a quarter mile and he was like, "All right, so should we catch them now or later?" I told him I was all but dropping out at the bottom of the hill, and he seemed surprised. The group of 3 was about 50m in front of me for the last half mile of the downhill; I was never quite able to catch them. I did get a bit of distance on the guy that talked to me, so I was in sixth after the downhill. My uphill mile was 6:01, and my downhill mile was 5:01; I was pretty happy with that and thought it might be worth a 10-flat 2-mile on a track.

Once on flat ground again, I let the guy pass me and I told him good luck, and I slowed way down...it was kind of funny to be going so slow while still in the top 10. A guy had a hose on a ladder spraying onto the street, so I walked through the refreshing mist, and the people standing and watching laughed a bit at me taking my time there (I was probably still top 20 at that point). My third mile was just over 7 minutes, and more and more people were passing me. It was kind of weird thinking that the people passing me at 18 minutes were going a very-respectable 6-minute mile pace. My fourth mile was a little over 8 minutes, my fifth a little over 9, and my sixth also over 9. My legs were hurting from the first 2 miles, and I think I might have felt better if I had stayed going somewhat fast. My finish time was 46:48, and I just realized that my bib number was 4846, so that's kinda weird I suppose. I used a fake name (Ralen Gupp) for the race, so my good name will not be tainted by a time over 12 minutes slower than my PR.

My stomach had started hurting again in the last mile of the race, so I used a toilet again at the finish, and after having some lovely stale bagels and water, I jogged home. My stomach and legs still hurt, but I did get a shout of "Nice legs!" from a guy in a truck.

After getting home I went back to bed for like five hours, and then watched the Mariners beat the Red Sox the second day in a row.