25 Laps?! Yep, My First 5000M Race on a Track!

It just sounded too crazy NOT to try: a 5000 meter run on a 200 meter track. That's 25 laps. Sign me up.

Sean and I were going to both race the 5000. He had just hurt his foot a little, so he was going to treat it like a hard tempo run. Here we are before the start:

Oh yeah, I had decided to wear the "bowl full of sunshine" shorts too! LOVE them! ;)

Sean and I lined up with the 17 others racing the 5000. You can see us just left-of-center:

Pharmie came to cheer us on and to take all of these photos! Thanks Hun! I had told her 2 things before the race. ONE: my goal was sub-18, shooting for around 17:45 (which would be around 5:45 / mile). And TWO: I had to watch it because I KNEW I could go out too hard.

The good news was I could take as many splits as I wanted to! The bad news was that 25 laps sounded depressing! I settled on taking my 1600 splits (8 laps), but I knew I might be looking at my watch every 400 (2 laps). The 19 of us gathered near the start, worked our way up to the line, and waited for the gun. Sean and I shook hands and wished each other luck.

"To your marks....." BANG!

(You can see the smoke by the gun)

See the guy with the pink shoes in the inside lane in that photo? Well he jumped right out into the lead, and I jumped in right behind him. We all got to single file pretty quickly. Here's how it looked as first place and I came down the home-stretch of the first lap, and this was the closest I got to him all day:

He just pulled away after this.


Another few laps into the race.


Making a pass after a few more laps.

I was A.L.W.A.Y.S. passing someone. I think everyone was either being passed or making passes. I only mention this because it's like I was nearly ALWAYS running in the second lane. With 19 guys on a 200 meter track, there's a lot of passing going on. I told Sean that I'd spank him whenever I passed him. When I first passed him (and spanked him), he said, "Oh, that was just a 'love tap!'" I laughed and wanted to say something like "Don't tempt me!" Ha!

When I ran past Pharmie after 4 laps (800 meters), I saw the clock read 2:30. Yep, I was running 5:00 / mile pace. Sh*t. Remember my worry about going out too hard? Yep, I was going out too hard. I tried to ease up a bit and let the speedy 18-year-old go. As I ran past Pharmie, I said "I'm going too fast!"

Passing a group, and shooting Pharmie a little grin.


Sean workin' it!


Taking my split after the first 1600. Yep, the clock reads 5:19.

1st 1600: 5:20. "Whoa. That's a little fast, buddy!" I wasn't thinking PR; I was thinking "you're gonna crash and burn!"

Coming up on Kirt, checking the time.


More passing a few laps later.

I glanced at my watch at the 12.5 lap mark (2500 meters, or the half-way point). I watched the numbers tick over from 8:29 to 8:30. That meant if I could HOLD this pace, I'd have a 5K PR of 17:00 flat. (My PR is 17:11.) But I knew better - I was NOT going to be able to hold that initial pace!

Here's a photo of me at the end of the line, coming to the 3200 meter point (2 miles). I was still running in second, and first place had just lapped me - first place is wearing the dark jersey in the middle of this pack:

2nd 1600: 5:38. "That's what I thought: you couldn't hold that. But KEEP IT STRONG HERE!" I figured I could turn in a sub-17:30 at this point, and I was pretty thrilled! But I was hurting!!

Around 8 laps left.


I just passed the guy behind me, and he stayed on my heels!

The bald guy behind me in that photo stayed just a stride or 2 behind me the rest of the way. He was pushing me nicely! He came up to me after the race and thanked me for being his rabbit!!

Oww.


A few laps left. Guy in white still on my tail. Still feeling "owww."


Taking my third 1600 split with ONE LAP LEFT! Major owwww.

3rd 1600: 5:38. "1 lap left! Just GOOO!" Jeez, I was hurting! I mean, did you SEE my face in the photo above?... ;)

The next series of photos are all just a few seconds apart in real-time:

Final kick on the outside.


Awkward finish. Awesome. (And that's my "lap counter" on the left.)


Just let me catch my breath...


"... Go Sean! Nice work!...."


*huff* *huff* *cough* *huff*


...I feel like hell....

OFFICIAL RESULTS:
5000 meters
17:17.30
5:33.9 / mile
2 out of 19 overall
1 out of 4 in the 19-34 age group


NOTES:

• First place (the speedy 18-year-old who nearly lapped me twice) finished in 16:10. Good God.

• This was my second fastest 5K time ever! That shocked me a little! But Pharmie had told me before the race that I was going to surprise myself. How does she always know?!?

• Having to do 25 laps wasn't as mentally draining as I thought it was going to be. Maybe I had psyched myself up enough that doing the actual race wasn't that big of a deal. I think it also really helped that I broke it into 1600s like most people would during a normal 5K.

• I think I turned in a better-than-expected time because there was no place to let my mind wander. It wasn't like a normal 5K where maybe between miles 1 and 2, there are just a few spectators. There were people to push me (spectators and runners alike) the ENTIRE time.

• This was a Charities Challenge race, and they have 2 more indoor track meets coming up over the next month (with "normal" track events like the 60, 200, 400, 800, mile, etc). Check them out if you're interested.

I caught my breath and cheered for the rest of the runners. Pharmie and I cheered Sean to his finish:

Congrats Sean!

I cooled down a bit and ran with Pharmie (who was stretching out her legs after her 10K the day before - see yesterday's post for photos during her 10K). Then we had to grab 2 more photos. Before the race, I chatted with Mary (a local blogger) for a while. We'd never "formally" been introduced. Mary seems like a ton of fun! So here's Mary and I after my race:

Thanks for volunteering and helping out, Mary!


Sean and Pharmie post-race.

So just a final big THANKS to Gary and the rest of the crew at Charities Challenge for making my first 5000 meters a (sort of) fun one! (Well, at least less agonizing than I thought!) Thanks everyone!!

Back with a "2010 in review" post shortly.

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Photos from the Polar Dash (Pharmie's first 10K!)

Yep, it's true: the Team Ortho Polar Dash was Pharmie's FIRST 10K! She's done 12 marathons, 9 half Ironmans, and 2 full Ironmans, but NEVER a stand-alone 10K! And she picked a DARN cold day to do it!

(Oh, and if you want to see more photos, CLICK HERE to read my Examiner article about the race and flip through the slideshow.)

The start was just under 2 miles away, so we planned on just jogging down there. We ran along the river to the start, and gathered among the masses in the parking ramp, near the "warming tent" and porta-potty line:

Pre-race Sharkies


Frozen faces

We went out to the start just a few minutes before 11 am (race time). Here's the mass of 1,800 people heading up to the starting line:

Jenny and Guy starting out


Debbie and Beth just 200 feet into the race


Pharmie running towards me!


Pharmie smiling (you can still tell she's smiling under all of that!)


Pharmie (in the middle) running out of MPLS towards St. Paul


Shirtless dude

I cheered the 5K runners to the finish. (There was a 5K and 10K going on at the same time.) I watched Kristy take the win in the 5K by MAJORLY outkicking this girl in the black:

Kristy in the yellow, ready to kick some butt!

Shortly after that, my camera battery was so frozen that even though it had a full charge an hour before, it was now DEAD. I put it under my coat to warm it up and hoped that it would have a few shots in it by the time Pharmie was going to be finishing the 10K!

I cheered on all the runners, and then started to slow down cheering because my fingers were starting to freeze. I cheered on Jennifer V, Steve H (swimming buddy), Guy and Jenny, Beth and her friend Debbie, and then saw Pharmie coming in the distance!! She was smiling big as she was nearing the finish line:

YAY PHARMIE!!

I ran after her through the finisher's chute, she grabbed a cup of hot cocoa, and we started our jog home. We got home and I grabbed a different camera to snap a shot of my frozen wife and her medal:

Then she made HOMEMADE hot cocoa, grabbed the new Runner's World along with our cat Ella, and warmed herself by the fire:

Fun way spend New Year's Day!

To see more photos from the race, CLICK HERE to go to my Examiner article.

Back with my report from my first indoor 5000 meter race tomorrow! (25 laps, baby!) Happy New Year, everyone!!

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Why You Should NOT Purchase Race Photos!

Yesterday, I had my 1,000th post. I didn't have time to do anything too fun, so I thought I'd "celebrate" now with #1,001. So lets have some fun..... ;)

Recently, I got an e-mail from my buddy Sean. He works for Final Stretch (a local race organization), and said he had come across 2 "full-sized" race photos of me from the Waseca Triathlon. He sent me these 2 images:

On the bike.


On the run.

Those two images were DRASTICALLY scaled down from the original files. The originals were 3,456 x 5,184 pixels, or around the 18 megapixel range! If I were to zoom into the photo above to 100%, it'd be THIS BIG:

I've never ordered an official race photo before, so I thought I'd take a CLOSE look at these images.

First, the one on the bike. When I looked close at my face, I saw that my helmet was a little crooked, and my visor was poking me sideways in the nose:

Classy.

Then I looked farther south. Remember, this was the race where I first wore the "Tutti Frutti" swim shorts, and they have NO padding! They are just swim shorts. So that made THIS an extra lovely shot:

There could be FEWER fat rolls on top and MORE "fat" rolls on the bottom.
If you get my drift.

Then I saw my shoulder. Is this divot normal? It looks like I had something removed:

Is that normal? Yikes.

Then I looked closely at the photo of me on the run. There are a lot of "issues" with the way I look in this photo (expression and hair are the worst), but I like seeing my shadow in the reflection of my glasses:

And then I saw my hand. My DANG PINKY was sticking out just a little! Why do I "daintily" run with my pinky out when I start to hurt?!?

Side Note: you've seen this "pinky out" issue before. Here's an image from the Liberty Tri this last year....

Oh so dainty.

....and here's one from the end of 2009 when I was sprinting to the line of the Monster Dash 10 Mile:

That pinky is WAY out there!

Then I looked just below my pinky in that race photo from Waseca.

Do you know what NO ONE wants to see in their race photos? Love handles.

Do you know what's WORSE than love handles? HAIRY love handles!

Screw you, race photographer. I didn't need to see that.

When I thought I was done looking at the train wreck known as my race photos, I looked BEHIND me in the photo of me on the run. The photographer actually captured drips of sweat coming off of me during that HOT run. These little specks are only visible below my waist, as if beads of sweat were rolling off my leg hair:

Nasty.

Let me state this for the record:

I'm.

Never.

Ordering.

A.

Race.

Photo.

I'm just a nasty mo-fo. Gross.

(Back with 2 race reports on Monday and Tuesday: Pharmie's 10K and my indoor 5000 meters.)

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