Ales Rarus

I ran the Chamber Classic 5K in North Park this morning. All in all, I'm pretty unimpressed. First of all, I'm unimpressed with my time, 29:42, which works out to a 9:35 mile pace. Ugh. I really should be doing 9 minutes or better for a 5K race. Perhaps I haven't been training enough lately. Then again, perhaps my sweatshirt and sweatpants impeded my performance. I definitely don't feel like I run as well when I have to keep warm with sweats.

That's my personal stopwatch time, by the way. I don't have my ChampionChip time yet, and I don't know if I'll trust it when I do. You see, the entrance to the registration and refreshments tent was right next to the 5K finish line and the 1/2 marathon lap checkpoint. When I finished, there was no "rancher" herding me to the guy with the clippers to remove my chip. Consequently, when I went into the tent to get goodies and ask about getting my chip removed, I set off the 1/2 marathon sensor. I'm very much not alone in that, either. I saw lots of folks do the same.

The refreshments, by the way, were just about the only really worthwhile thing about this race. The spread was ample and diverse with apples, oranges, bananas, cookies, bagels, and lots of beverages.

The race was really disorganized. Nobody really knew where the starting line was because there were no signs, banners, or arches. In fact, I didn't even see chip sensor stuff, I'm sure my chip time will be artifactually longer because there was no differentiation between when someone said "go" and when I actually crossed the starting line, not there was really any to be seen. When we actually did start, it was at least 5 minutes late. Grr.

The organizers describe the course as mostly flat with a steep incline at the beginning. Well, the steep hill part is right. The rest is flat like Dolly Parton. It's a series of rolling hills. None are as steep as the first, but the constant up and down screws with my stride. Also, the run was through a park, but we ran on park roads, not paths. For me, that kind of defeats the prupose of running in a park. Might any of my readers know of any good 5K or 10K races that use park trails? I love running on trails. I really think Schenley Park, where I do some of my training, would be an ideal location, but I've never heard of any races using it.

I've already mentioned some of the post-race annoyances. One that affected the 1/2 marathoners more than it affected me was, again, the location of the lap checkpoint. When the 5K racers finished, they naturally milled about, caught there breath, and sought refreshments. Meanwhile, the 1/2 marathoners are trying to continue their race. It was kind of chaotic. Not only that, but the route past the 5K finish line was poorly marked and I saw more than few 1/2 marathon racers accidentally cut a large corner as they existed the parking lot we were in.

Poorly planned, poorly organized, poorly executed. It was no thrill to run this race. I doubt I'll be doing it next year. nor will I be running the Jingle Bell Run held in North Park.

Today I ran my first race. It was the Run Shadyside 5K. I finished in 28:32, so my mile pace was 9:12. It could have been better, but I wasn't disappointed. I learned a few lessons from today. 1) While it was a good idea for me to avoid coffee this morning, and hot chocolate isn't a known diuretic, I ought to limit my fluid intake prior to a race. Running with an uncomfortable bladder is suboptimal, to say the least. 2) I need to pace myself better. My first mile pace was about 30 seconds faster than it should have been. For the Great Race 10K, I'll be keeping pace with Rob of UnSpace. Hopefully, he'll keep me from going faster than 9 minutes/mile for the first half. 3) Though running with the vestiges of a head cold is doable, it's certainly not preferable.

The image shown is a graph of my mile pace times since I started timing my runs (Open in a separate page to see at full size). I started running to shed some pounds and some fat, but now I'm enjoying the sport itself. It's a great way to push myself. Running faster than other people would be cool, but right now I'm focusing on beating myself. If I only worried about losing weight, I think I'd get discouraged because progress is slow. By setting time and distance goals for myself, I have something with more immediate results to strive for. I'm running the Great Race 10K next weekend and I might run the Pace Race 5K on October 8. If any Pittsburghers know of any races I might be interested in, please let me know.

For some good running advice, check out these UnSpace articles:

5K Race Strategy: A Must-Read
5K & 10K Race Strategy: Preparation
5K & 10K Race Strategy: The Race Course