Keep LA Running - 5K - Race Report

So technically this was a training day for me, but I decided to spice things up a little and enter a 5K road race that was located close to where I live in Playa Del Rey.

It was a perfect morning. Slightly damp in the air and overcast. The start for the race was about 2 miles away so I decided it would be a great warm-up for me to run there.

I was due to start at 8am so I tried to time it so that I  wouldn't be hanging around too long but this backfired on me a little as the race organizers delayed the start at first by 15 minutes but eventually by 30 minutes.

I must have warmed up 4 or 5 times that morning. In contrast, I normally do not warm up enough at all and really suffer in the races so this actually wasn't that bad. It was also somewhat closer to the situation in triathlons so it was great practice.

The delay also allowed me to meet one of my running heros growing up. The great Zola Budd (Pieterse), who was at the event as a special guest and would be participating in the 10K.

Zola is a middle distance runner and has some very impressive times under her belt. Check these out:

1500m - 3:59.96
1 Mile - 4:17.57
3000m - 8:28.83
5000m - 14:48.07

She also won Gold at the 1985 and 1986 IAAF World Cross Country Championships.

For more info on Zola, please check out Wikipedia.

I had a really good opportunity to chat with Zola before the race and we talked about our new love for Newton running shoes and also my travels around her homeland, South Africa. I also managed to get her to sign my race bib and a fellow LA Tri Club member, (Thanks Beth), kindly took a picture of me with Zola.
As you can tell, I was already having a great day.

So, finally it was time to head up to the start of the race. The expo was in the beach car park where the finish line was but the race would start up on the main road that passed along in front of the airport.

While warming up, I bumped into my good friend Simon Gowen, who has coached me on my running and really helped me realize my potential. He was scheduled to run in the 10K but due to the delays, switched to the 5K at the last minute. At first this was great but all of a sudden I realized that I knew someone racing against me which put the pressure on. Simon's friend Brent was also there next to me on the start line so this was turning into a real race for me. In previous training runs, both Simon and Brent have been faster than me, but this was last season so I had no idea where we would stack up.

I felt like I did a great warm-up. I ran to within 1 minute of the start. The clock counted down and the gun went off for the start.

I felt good right away. One guy was clear at the front but I was keeping at the back of the front pack. Even though I felt good, I has a feeling I wasn't going to be able to sustain the pace so I slowed slightly. My Garmin watch later told me I had started off at a 5:30 pace but slowed to 6:00.

Just before the first turn around point at 0.75 miles, first Simon and then Brent came past me. It was a steady pace but it was still hard for me to latch on to their heals. As they started to gap me I felt that I had to stay in contact with them. This was just like my last triathlon. I knew I had been able to hold on before so I made an effort to catch up to their heels.

I was able to pull in the gap, but at the same time, Brent was catching Simon so I looked up the road and decided to but in a push to catch the next runner ahead. This was about 10 yards further but I was able to close the gap fast.

At this point, I was afraid that Simon and Brent would have seen this move and as I slowed to a steady pace, would jump on my heels again. I spotted the next couple of runners and decided to repeat the move. One at a time, getting on the heels of the next person, recovering slightly and repeating the process.

These burst of speed were around 5:30 pace with some as low as 4:45. Each one felt good, but as the lead pack disappeared, it left fewer and fewer runners to track down that were in my range.

As the 2 mile marker came into view, I slotted in behind the last runner in range. My breathing was a lot heavier now so remaining at this pace felt good.

At the entrance to the parking lot, a volunteer cheered me on and told me to up my cadence. They were right of course. The first thing I do when I get tired is drop my cadence which creates a snowball affect which makes me more tired.

We had dropped down on to the beach parking service road. This was the last stretch and I felt like I wanted to finish strong. I was still right behind this one last runner with the lead pack way ahead, probably already finished.

I decided that I was going to stay with him until the 3 mile marker and then make my push for the line. I glanced at my watch and I realized the pace was dropping to a 6:20 pace and my average was reading 6:02. I decided to go earlier and picked up the pace with about 0.2 miles to go. I wanted to make sure I was not followed so I made sure the pace was fast for me. It was under 5:00 pace with a maximum pace of 4:18 reading on my watch. It felt good and I have realized that as long as I know where the finish line is, I could probably keep that pace going for longer if I needed to. Something to remember for next weekends race.

I finished in a time of 00:18:56 with an official average pace of 6:05 but my watch measured the course to be slightly long at 3:17 miles this worked out to be a 5:59 average. This finally beat my all time best and broke the 6:00 mile mark I had targeted for the season.

I have also never been competitive before in a road race. Although the really fast guys were nearly 4 minutes faster than me, I still finished 4th in my age group and 21st overall. This was my best 5K by far.

In comparison, the last 5K road race I did, about a year earlier, had me finish in a time of 21:13 and placed 13th in my age group and 102nd overall.

Things are looking up for me in the world of running. It was fun.

Incidentally, Zola said this was her fastest 10K time in 10 years. She finished second overall in a very fast 36:41. Good work!

The full results can be found here:   5K  10K

Next up, Strawberry Fields Sprint Triathlon.

Breath of Life Triathlon 2010 - Race Report

So my next race should have been Redondo Beach triathlon a couple of weeks ago but a trip to England forced me to change my plans. As a result, I filled my schedule with another race I had been considering, Breath of Life up in Ventura, CA.

It was a new race for me but it was also a new venue for the race which made it a level playing field. As with all my races scheduled this year, I am doing the sprint distance so that I can continue working on my speed. Looking at the course, I was very pleased this was the case. The swim course for the Olympic distance race looked very complex and I heard lots of nightmare stories of athletes getting very lost out there.

I got to the race and while in transition, realized that I was surrounded by hoards of 15-16 year olds. One of them, next to me had been doing triathlons since he was 4 years old and had done hundreds. This was going to be my 9th triathlon ever over a span of 5 seasons so not really in the same league. He was only 15 though and actually looked younger so I figured it was all a bit of fun.

The sprint distance event was going to start 10 minutes after the last wave of the Olympic distance event. This put me in wave 8, the latest start I have had so far. This was the first sprint wave, putting me with the 34 and under bracket, but more interesting was that we would be linking up with one of the later Olympic distance waves as we shared the last part of their course.

Swim

The gun went off and I must admit, I didn't react as fast as I thought I would. I wasn't in the front row but just behind what looked like some fast young swimmers. Even though I was in the middle of the row, I still managed to find some clear water but I failed to latch on to anyones feet which I was disappointed with.
I was amazed just how quickly we got to the first buoy though.

We knew we were going to connect up with the Olympic distance swimmers but I didn't realize there would be so many colored hats out there. Actually, we ended up linking up with about 5 different waves so it got a little chaotic. As far as I can tell, the majority at this point were missing the last buoy. All of the youngsters in front of me in my wave seemed to head straight back after the 3rd buoy which I wasn't very pleased to see. There was a lifeguard on a surfboard telling people to round the last and 4th buoy but not stopping those that didn't. If it was this confusing for the sprint distance competitors, I don't even want to guess at how bad the Olympic distance swim was.

The exit from the swim led us up the beach and around some sand dunes. This part the day before had looked pretty bad but in reality it was fairly easy. I have really eased down my kick in the swim so my legs felt strong at this point.

T1

The transition area was pretty well organised in a parking lot just off the beach and with the help of another competitors balloon, my bike was easy to find. As expected, the kids surrounding my area had all already gone and the area looked surprisingly empty. I didn't think my swim was that bad so I can only assume missing the last buoy saved more time than I thought.

I had a smooth transition with just an additional squirt of water to clear the sand from my feet before continuing.

Bike

My bike mount was my best so far. Back to basics and making sure my feet were firmly on my shoes before continuing. I got up to speed before putting my feet, one at a time into my shoes. It felt good on the course. I quickly got up to the 25mph I had as my target and set out to catch those ahead of me. One by one I overtook all of the kids I had seen in transition. One of the USA twins was ahead of me blatantly drafting on the bike. Again, it was very disappointing seeing something so obvious not get picked up. Apparently, he and his brother are on team USA and allowing this kind of cheating to happen at that level is upsetting.

Anyway, it didn't affect me as I blasted on by, still feeling very comfortable.

On the bottom part of the loop, I was caught by some other bikers. I had eased down slightly to take on fluids and a GU gel. Once back up to speed, there ended up being about 5-7 of us all together. I think it was about 50-50 sprint and Olympic distance athletes but there was no way of knowing.

We exited the loops and headed back to the finish. It was actually quite hard at this point as there were so many of us together but I am really pleased with everyones ability to avoid drafting by spreading out sideways. I'm looking forward to seeing the photograph that was taken as we all came back into the harbor.

My dismount was nearly perfect. They had two lines marked. One as a warning and the second the official dismount line. This confused us a little as we all got ready to dismount too early but after coasting a little bit further, I had a clean dismount and headed into transition.

T2

The bike of the 15 year old I talked to before the race was already there. I underestimated him. My T2 went smoothly as well and I set off through transition at a fairly good pace.

Run

As I said in my last post, my run is by far my limiter in terms of being competitive in a race.
My breathing felt heavy even though my legs felt pretty good at this point. I was caught by a 22 year old in a UCLA outfit. He seemed pretty nice and muttered encouragement as he passed. I increased my speed slightly to try to stay with him. I did, which made me feel better. On one of the corners however, he didn't round one of the cones that stated, stay left, and he gapped me by 5 or 6 yards. This made all the difference and he started pulling away from me. The next part of the course was a nasty little thing they called the maze. A zig-zag section presumably there to stop cyclists.

It was just after this section that we saw the 15 year old. He was flying. Out in front on his own. The turn was only around the corner but he had a lead of over a minute.

At the turn around, a number of guys ahead of us continued straight on, leaving me in 3rd place. There was a little gap behind me to the next guy and I was holding the UCLA guy ahead of me. As we approached the maze again, we were guided around the outside, but instead of taking a tight right to get back down onto the path, the UCLA guy went straight ahead. It wasn't his fault as the marshals on that bit of the course did not tell him where to go but I still lost out another 15 yards or so.

To make things worse, the guy behind me, Josh, was reeling me in. With about half a mile to go, he overtook me. I looked down at his ankle and saw 33. The same age as me. I had lost 1st place in my age group. I have to admit that I hate this feeling. At first he gapped me but I put in a burst and tucked in behind him. I was at 100% and he kept pulling away. I kept putting in burst to stay with him. He seemed to have a fair bit of support which didn't help me.

I saw the finish line to the left and put in a final burst to put me on his heels. As we rounded the corner, I knew we only had 30 yards to go. I drew all my effort and kicked hard. To my surprise, there was not a counter kick to match mine. I pulled out a couple of seconds and claimed my 1st place in my age group.

Josh was a really nice guy and we talked for a while afterwards about different scenarios where he could have won. With me just behind him on the run he had admitted to being on 100% as well. I had no idea that by sticking with him, I had been draining him of energy. He had nothing left at the finish.

Overall, this was a great race for me. I would say my best performance yet and I was really happy with the result. Here are my times:

Results

Overall: 5th
Age Group 1st
Swim: 7:24 (Includes run up beach to transition)
Bike: 36:09 (Includes T1 and T2. 24mph est on bike)
Run: 19:33 (6:18 Mile)
Total 1:03:07.8