I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I pulled my hamstring last summer. Since then, I’ve been taking it easy, cycling, etc. This last week I got hit by a car. Not to make anything too easy, I went to the track on Thursday (car was Tuesday) and felt like absolute crap. Tried to do an 800 and stopped after about 300. Not so good. I realized the only way I was really going to kick start my training was to enter a race. So kick I did.
I’m in Los Angeles for the autoshow. The weather is nice here. Apparently it’s nice here a lot. I’m surprised more people don’t live here. Well, if a lot of people moved here I’m sure they’d just drive everywhere and clog up the freeways. I’m glad that doesn’t happen.
Today I got up and ran the Get Fit Be Fit 5k, which went really well. This is my first race since my injury last summer, and as I may have mentioned, I am a little off my game having recently been hit by a car. That being said, this is my first morning here so I woke up early with some energy. Had a few bowls of fruit loops and headed off to the start.
There was both a 10k and a 5k to run, and I couldn’t decide what to do. The 5k is stressful but it’s over quickly. The 10k feels like more my distance, but this course was two loops of the 5k course, so I knew it would be too easy to just drop out after a loop. So 5k it was.
The race was managed by Frontrunners Los Angles, a local running store. As far as I know, there is no relationship between the store and the New York running team. I stopped by the store to preregister and was told the race was super flat. I felt I was lied to.
The Taconics have no van
I did an easy 20 minute warmup and ran a little bit with the folks doing the 10k. Got a good look at the course and some of the folks involved. I will say this about LA — they know how to put on a race. The road closures were perfect, there was a freaking expo with about 15 booths. I couldn’t believe it. Really nice. Before the race, they had a local trainer and a microphone tell everyone to line up for their pre-race warm up. She had everyone run in place and touch their toes. I’ve been told never to run in place and I can’t touch my toes, so I did a bunch of strides with a few other competitive runners out there.
I wanted to do 6:20s throughout, which is what my training plan last summer suggested. However, I was in much better shape last summer than I am now, but I thought I might as well see what happens.
The gun went off. And we were off. Did pretty well for the first mile, 6:19. Then I looked ahead of me and saw something that looked very much like a hill. And indeed it was. Not a huge hill, like 100′ or so. But man it was hard. I was thinking to myself “self, this is why you should be thrilled to live in Croton. Hills. This is what you came for. No, self, actually you came to run a flat fast 5k so you can feel like it’s OK to take time off and recover. You can do a good time. Hill or no hill. Don’t look at your watch. Moderate your effort. Look around. Start counting Starbucks. That’ll pass the time.”
Mile 2: 6:33. That’s no good. But even before the split we had started to head downhill. And I was feeling better. OK, not better, but closer to the end.
The race had thinned out a bit at this point and I ran with another guy for about 200 meters. Then he faded a little bit and I pushed through. Mile 3 6:19. There was someone counting off splits, and he said “19:11″ as I passed. I realized I had a chance to get it under 20. And I did – 19:55. Average pace of 6:22. I was 2nd in my division.
So now I guess I’m competitive. ”SECOND? Who the heck was in front of me who was in their 40s?” I looked at the results and the guy who beat mean ran a 17:22. OK, that’s fast. Bless him.
I’m happy. I’m not in great shape, but I did get under 20. My back still hurts a little bit from the car accident, but I’m glad I was able to hold it together. Leaving the race, I realized I had no pictures to really reflect the scene. Then I saw a van. From a local running club. Painted. With the local running club logo. I guess there’s some money out here with the nice weather.
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