Let me apologize up front that this installment is quite long. I am very interested in getting everyone up to date on my story.
In January of 2006, I read about a fellowship opportunity in our church bulletin that sounded like a lot of healthy fun. Each year my church does a 10K training program for the Monument Avenue 10K. Thousands of people participate in the race and there are lots of local training groups that meet to train for the race. After the service I signed up for the training program. After I signed up, I learned that we would be meeting on Saturdays at 7:30AM. That seemed a little early for me but I had signed up so I had to go with it.
I had never run a race of any distance and did not really know what kind of training was required for a 10K. But that did not matter because our church training group had several great coaches. Most of the coaches were marathoners with multiple marathons under their belt including one of the pastors and the church organist. Plus, I was playing soccer on two teams again in the spring season so my 10K training would be complimented by two soccer games each week.
I thought I would have trouble getting motivated that early in the morning on a Saturday but when my alarm when off on that first Saturday at 6:45 AM, I found it pretty easy to get up. I was doing something very new and was excited. We all met at the church and signed up for either the novice, intermediate, or advanced group. I signed up for intermediate. Once we completed our meet and greet and morning devotions, we hit the pavement following the routes that had been planned by Pastor Mark. I ran at the front of the Intermediate group. The route for the Intermediate group was shared with the Advanced group up to a point. When we go to the point where the intermediates were turning around to head back to the church, I decided to keep going with the advanced group.
As it turns out, long distance runners run their long Saturday runs at a pace that is significantly slower than race pace. These long slow distances help to build endurance. All my years of soccer and biking had trained my body pretty well and I could easily run long slow distances. I had no idea that I could do it although it really should not have surprised me. I continued to run with the advanced group every Saturday and I did my weekly runs as prescribed by Pastor Mark.
Joining a training team was great motivator for me. Not only did I have people to run with on Saturday but I felt motivated to put in the mileage so I could hang with these guys each Saturday. The advanced team were all marathoners. Some of them would get up super early on Saturdays and put in many miles before we met to do the 10K training. I looked up to them because they were regular guys with regular full time jobs and families yet they were very fit and seemed to be able to run forever.
Our training continued from the end of January to the end of March. My goal was to beat 1 hour in what would be my first ever 10K. As we approached race day, I realized that I would be able to beat 1 hour with no difficulty at all. I ran the race in 49:07 which translates to just about an 8 minute mile. Running across the finish line with all the people cheering and the bands playing felt great. The months of training in the cold paid off. I had a big kick at the end and felt great after the race.
Melissa met me at the finish to congratulate me. I felt a certain euphoria. It was not the so called "runners high." I had just run 6.2 miles and I think one has to run a great deal more to achieve the "runners high." The euphoria came from a sense of accomplishment. There is something very rewarding in having a very well defined goal, knowing and taking all the steps necessary to achieve that goal, and then reaching the goal. I also love to shovel snow. With snow shoveling, the goal is very well defined and it is easy to tell when the goal has been achieved. Plus it is great exercise.
After this race, it was safe to say I had been bitten by the racing bug. I decided to sign up for another race. This time I was a bit more ambitious. I signed up for the Xterra Sport race which is an off road triathlon that comes to Richmond every summer. In previous years I had watched friends compete in this difficult race and thought I would go ahead and give it a try.
I really had no training program for this race. I had a good running base and I had been biking as much as possible on the course that they used for Xterra. My weakest area was swimming. I know how to swim but I am no Michael Phelps that is for sure. I managed to get a few training swims in and also participated in a clinic down at the river that was course specific. The guy teaching the clinic showed us how to navigate the currents and gave us some very useful tips that would give us a little home field advantage.
The Xterra was both difficult and a blast. It was my first ever triathlon. I arrived early and got my bike setup in the transition zone along with my running gear. These types of races always start with the swim, mostly for safety and logistics. Imagine running and biking many miles and then jumping into a river with fast moving current. Somehow I think that would be a recipe for disaster. The swim part of this race is hard because not only do you have to go cross current several times and do some swimming upstream against the current, there are rocks and other debris to watch out for. There are even some places where you can stand up for a few paces depending on the level of the river.
The gun went off and off we all went in the water. It was almost comical. I swam for as long as I could before I had to tread water and do the doggie paddle while I caught my breath. I felt like I was losing serious ground. I knew I could not win this race by any means but I did not want to be last. We did a wave start based on sex and age group with a 2 minute gap between groups. The women were the last ones to leave the shore. As I did my doggie paddle, the women would catch up to me and pass. I kept trudging along with the mantra, "just keep moving." I did catch a second wind and was able to swim more but I ended up with lots of starts and stops. I made it out of the water to the cheers of Melissa who is my biggest fan and is always there to support me. I ran back to the transition zone, got on the bike and headed for the technical and difficult mountain bike course. I was quite familiar with the course and finished pretty strong. Back at the transition zone, I pounded some sports drink, changed my shoes and headed out for the final leg of the race which was a 5k. I used the same mantra, "just keep moving."
My intent is not to give you a play by play of every race but this race was so difficult and at the same time exhilarating so I thought I would share some of the details. Part of the 5K course goes up what locals call the "Mayan Ruins." The "Mayan Ruins" is actually just about 20 very large steps that go up an embankment. Each step is about 1 to 2 feel high. Most people use their hands to climb up these steps. I did well on this part. I was able to leap up each step and pass several people along the way. The run then continues along the flood wall and eventually makes it way back to Brown's Island.
For my first Tri, I did pretty good. I finished in 1:55. Again I felt a great euphoria when I finished. It was so fun. The course was excellent and I was competing against some great athletes. Granted the pro who won the full distance race did his race in just under 2 hours also. I stuck around to watch him finish. He did twice the distance I did in the same time it took me to do my distance. What a beast.
At this point in my athletic career, I had discovered that racing was a lot of fun. Not quite as fun as soccer but it was different. I looked forward to running and biking knowing that the goal was to do well in races. By the end of 2006, I had done two races. In 2007 I would end up doing even more.
2 comments:
Well it is interesting to hear all of the details about these competitions. I certainly would not expect a dedicated soccer player to have much trouble with a 10K run……and you didn’t! Of course the “Tri” is much tougher, especially the swim part. You did very well with it!
I didn’t quite understand about that pro’s performance. He did the run twice as fast as you but still had a similar overall time?
There are two races. The Sport race and the Pro race. The Sport race starts first at 8 AM and then Pro race which does double the distance starts at 10:00 AM. It took me two hours to do my race and the pro that won his race (twice the distance) also did it in two hours.
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