HI. It's Laura.
Happy Monday!
I ended last week's training with a six mile run. I chose to switch Friday & Saturday's workout winding up with the run on Saturday just in case there was a race in the park. Slow, cranky and slightly hung-over from the fundraiser we were at the night before (not enough food, a little too much wine).
How right I was!
I run the loop clockwise because that is the direction most races are run in the park. The normal flow of traffic is counter clockwise. When I run in the opposite direction of the general flow, I stay as far right as I possibly can (aren’t those the rules of the road, stay right pass left?).
I asked one of the volunteers which side of the cones I should be on, she said the left but I saw so many people running the normal route I decided to go back to hugging the curb. That and the cyclists cursing me for running on the way opposite side in the wrong the direction.
Having made that decision, I settled down a little, when all of the sudden whistling and shouting from behind, the race was underway, time to get out of the way. I went back to the left side of the cones. I do believe Saturday will be the one and only time (other than television) that I will be at the front of the pack of a running race.
First the bikes with whistles come and clear the route, followed by an ambulance and a police car, then a truck. A truck? Apparently the truck leads the pack and it has the timer on it. The man who was at the front of the pack was at mile 2 and I saw 8 minutes had passed on the clock. I didn’t really need to read the clock, he passed by me, like I was running in place. WOW! The pack was that was fighting for second place was also impressive as was the smaller packs fighting for third and fourth places.
Around mile 3.5 on my route the bigger crowds started catching up with me, these people are still running 8 & 9 minute miles and the thundering footsteps of couple thousand people can be quite inspiring. I climbed the big hill and the "hill no one talks about" on the East Side running right alongside the race. The difference of running alongside the race and running the race is that the racers had their own lane while I was busy dodging pedestrians, cyclists, other runners and volunteers. grrrr.
Some sections of the race were cordoned off to keep the runners together and everyone else out of their way, other areas only used cones. When it was only cones, the runners would drift out in the non-racers land. The park can get very narrow in some areas. Hey, if I can't run in the cones you can't run outside of them.
To their credit, just before I got very cranky about it, the cyclist that was clearing the path in the beginning was chasing the runners back inside the cones. Thank you!
By the time I hit mile 5, I was done with the crowds, the park down the south end is very narrow, they had put the tape back up to the keep the runners in, but the crowds were just so annoying ( remember slightly hungover) . I knew I was close to the finish line because the music blasting out of the speakers were drowning out my iPod. I decided to leave the park and run along CPW.
This was a mistake. I forgot there are traffic lights and cars that I have to stop for. jeeeeez. I just want to finish ( I was having a small fantasy about pancakes) . Traffic lights forced me onto the sidewalk and more traffic forced me to the sunny side of the street. I am so close to the end. Now I am dodging pedestrians, cyclists, strollers, traffic, traffic lights and more runners. I finally hit my street and it’s shady and quiet. Aaaah. I ended my run in the usual spot and realize I have run an extra half mile. Oops.
Running the race without running the race gave me an interesting perspective and allowed me to see the front of the pack which I won't see at my current running pace (very unlikely to change). What I did see however, was my pace changed. I ran my 10K on Saturday at a much faster pace than I normally run. Thank you racers for helping me pick up the pace. And breakfast turned out to be 2 scrambled and corned beef hash.
Last week's recovery week is over and I am moving on to more intense training with only 7 weeks left to go.
Play hard!
Laura
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