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Tag Archives: 5K

CollaBEERation

05 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by Ed Mahoney in Running

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

5K, Left Hand Brewery, Shoes and Brews, Sole Mates 5K

ellie-n-ed

This morning’s 5K race was a collaBEERation between two Longmont Brew Pubs, Left Hand and Shoes & Brews.  I planned to run with Ellie, but she paired up with Susan instead.  I have some closer up photos of them finishing together, but this one captures Susan with both her feet airborne, and the two peaks of the Twin Sisters in the upper right.

 

picture removed

I don’t have any pics of Keith running, because he finished 15 seconds ahead of me.  We had a good race, with Keith leading the first mile, I took over for the second, and then Keith stormed back into the lead for the third mile.  I was just behind him until the final half where he put on a strong kick.  This photo of Jill and Rychie shows them finishing strong too.

jill-n-rychie

Quite a few of my friends came out to run this morning.  I didn’t get pics of them all.  Awesome fall day with 50° temps and full sunshine, no wind.  And of course, a dozen of Longmont’s brew pubs set up booths afterward to dish out free beer.  I quaffed a Rabbit Mountain Red Ale from 300 Suns.  Jen, Steve and Jill enjoyed some tasty brews as well.

jen-n-steve-n-jill

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Colder Bolder 2015

05 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by Ed Mahoney in Running

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

5K, CU campus, evol burritos, race results

finishTo run the Colder Bolder, CU students merely have to roll out of bed, gear up, and stroll over to the Balch Field House.  This 5K race is on their campus and chock full of college kids, including some members of the CU Cross Country team.  It’s a fast race.  But it’s also run in 12 heats, every few minutes, based on a 2 minute range from your Bolder Boulder finish time for all times under 64 minutes.  I’m slated to run in the second heat with runners who finished the Bolder Boulder between 42 and 44 minutes.  I like the novelty of an invitational, but I think I mostly register for the hat.

Less than three dozen runners are queued up in my heat.  Three or four women.  So there’s my race goal, beat the women.  They are more than half my age and fast, or they wouldn’t be in this heat, but beating them is possible theoretically.  I know from experience that I’ll likely finish in the second half of this heat, but targeting the women might help me to sneak into the top half.  Based on past results, the women will finish in the middle of the pack.  Predicated on spotting ponytails, my race strategy is more art than science.

I’m also battling injury.  I confirmed yesterday with my Chiropractor that I have high hamstring strains in both legs.  I injured them in the Jamestown Hill Climb in early October and the pain has progressed to where I can barely walk or even sit after a run.  Since daylight savings ended, I’ve mostly run every other day.  I haven’t run since Tuesday this week.  I suspect I will need to take off six weeks or so to fully recover.  Good thing it’s winter.  Before I surrender to recovery though, I have one more race to run.  My Chiropractor frowned upon me racing today, but I’m going out in a blaze of glory.  Although I might avoid a final kick.  Sprinting will hurt for sure.  Afterward if not immediately.  I warmed up a good two miles and honestly, my confidence doesn’t have me feeling certain I’ll even finish this race, let alone challenge those girls.  But with my toe on the starting line, I’m committed now.

This course starts downhill the first half mile.  That’s unfortunate for me because I start out slow and can’t take advantage of it.  I begin in nearly last place but start to pass other runners as we turn up hill again at the half mile point.  I’m not breathing hard but have limited range of motion and little power in my legs.  Still, I cross the first mile in 6:43.  About what I wanted to run.  This gives me confidence.  My breathing is easy the rest of the race, but I just can’t power up my legs.  I try to surge on the downhills but don’t get much speed there either.  I hit the second mile in 7:15 and pass one girl.  She’s maybe 11 years old.  Ninety percent of these runners are between 18 and 25.  I coast from here and run the final mile in 7:17.  To plan, to avoid further injury, I cool down the last half mile rather than kick.  No point in making things worse.  Time to begin the healing process.  I finish in 21:51, about 2 minutes slower than I ran the first 3 miles of last weekend’s 4 mile Turkey Trot.

evol

Glad I ran though because this is a fun event.  It’s actually quite large, well over 1000 runners.  Possibly more photographers than in the Bolder Boulder.  And I love Evol burritos, which they supply all-you-can eat.  I eat two and sip an Oscar Blues IPA before 8:30am, while half the campus is still in bed.

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Pain is Good

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by Ed Mahoney in Running

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

5000 meters, 5K, anti-fragility

No idea why I am thinking about this now.  I was in a group conversation several months back that started out about how drugs have hurt people and I started to contribute to the discussion with a spin on dealing with reality.  I put it in terms of pain management.  I realized I was going to start talking about my sister who had drug issues and has now passed away and so I sort of clammed up and withdrew my contribution to the discussion because I wasn’t drunk enough to open up and talk about it.  I guess because I left the thought open ended, it has stayed with me and I want to close it.  Not the thoughts about my sister but the notion of dealing with pain.  This is a running blog.

I’m as big a whiny wimp as anyone – trust me.  But I’m good with pain.  To a degree.  I’m not referring to the levels of pain associated with torture and such.  I’m talking about pain that is there to reinforce that fact that you are alive.  Pain is the perfect feedback loop on your running.  Pain and fatigue establish a barrier that you can actually feel to understand your pace in a run or intensity of training.  If you’re not sore after a workout, you should understand you are maintaining a plateau more than improving.  And you couldn’t ask for a more clear signal than pain in a race to monitor your progress.

I think this thought came to me because I’m planning to run a couple of 5Ks this Saturday and I’m thinking of pushing them hard.  I haven’t run a 5K road race in over 20 years and I’m curious if I can handle a hard pace for 20 minutes.  Clearly I’m used to running a pace that I know I can maintain over one to four hours.  Much longer on some of my high altitude hikes.  But I’m not going to run that slow for 3 miles!

Working against me is experience.  I don’t have any recent experience at running faster.  I haven’t trained for a 5K.  But I think I know the tricks because I do have knowledge from past experience.  I can’t start out so fast that I immediately go into oxygen debt.  I’ll know I’m in oxygen debt by the heavy pain that consumes my legs.  And it’s possible that despite knowing better to start out too fast, I might anyway.  The pain will be my signal to slow down.  You can recover from oxygen debt.  The human body is nothing if not anti-fragile.  It learns from experience and recovers from sickness as well as workouts – sometimes even with future immunity.  You can recover more effectively from the build-up of lactic acid the quicker you notice it occurring.  So if I’m overly excited and launch off the starting line like a rocket, I’ll slow down.  But I’ll monitor the pain and when I feel it subside I’ll begin to push myself again.

It will be much more efficient overall to warm up with a slow pace and gradually increase my speed, but in either case it’s a matter of being tuned in to the pain feedback.  Again, this isn’t tortuous pain.  It’s manageable.  And it’s a tool.  It’s fair for any coach to say it’s mental because at this level it really is.  Like the line in the movie The Matrix, “There is no spoon.”  Low-level pain can pass for numbness with the right focus.  If I listen carefully to my body, I’ll be able to maintain a pace that is just below the threshold of oxygen debt.  I think I can maybe do this for a 5K based on my ability to do it in a marathon.  At least I hope so because I’m fixin’ to run the Colder Boulder 5K and the Prospect Rudolph Dash 5K this Saturday.  I want to run well and it’s too late to start training for speed now.

40.137598 -105.107652

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