The Retro Run 5 and 10k

This was my first race since entering the 40+ age categories. Not that I feel slower today than I did Thursday when I was still 30 something, but I thought the fact that this race was 80s themed felt right. Anyone who knows me knows that the 80s weren’t exactly my favorite decade, but I suppose there were still some fun times. To be honest, most of my fun times that decade involve running or my friends from running.

I really enjoyed all the Michael Jackson, Madonna and Olivia Newton John outfits at the race, however, I was dressed as a forty year old in 2012, sorry about that. J I’ve included a few pictures of the crowd, something I don’t normally do, but since there were so many people who put in the effort they deserved it.

I always comment on the T-shirt from races and this one was a gem. I usually add them to a pile I collect up and then have a quilt made from them. I might wear this one. It is a 80s style shirt that you might have worn in your softball league or something, with the neck and arms trimmed in red. The only thing I don’t like is that it doesn’t have the date on it. I guess next year I’ll see if they do a new shirt each year or if there is no date so they can just hand out the leftovers. So the shirt goes from a solid A to a B+ on that little detail. There a few sponsors on the back but not too bad.

The race itself wasn’t terrible but felt a little low budget at times. The start area was just two flags in the middle of a field and didn’t even have a line drawn between the flags. The starter of the race gave a countdown from his watch as it ticked to 9 am… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Go! No gun or horn; that seemed really odd for a race that I was wearing a chip for.  The race had several spots where we were running on grass and several places with tight turns or narrow paths.

The 5k started 5 minutes after the 10k and this caused a few issues, but the race officials seemed to handle it okay. Several people who signed up for the 10k only ran 5k or something like that. Every time I looked at the official results my finish place went up. I finally settled in at 19^th overall, but 5^th in my age group. Since it was a race on the smaller side, the age groups were 10 year increments and not the 5 I prefer. I don’t recall what I paid for this race, but I don’t think it was much, so I won’t complain about the awards. I did like that they removed the top 3 overall from the age groups, some of the race organizers in town don’t do that, so less people leave with a keepsake.

The course ran all over the park with loops and dips and many turns and hills. Unfortunately the 10k was just the 5k run twice. I always pick the longer distance when multiple races are offered, but I did run into 5k traffic towards the end of the race. The race didn’t offer a way to distinguish the two groups, we shared the course and we all finished together. Hopefully no one cheated, but there was no means of preventing it. My GPS watch read 6.08 miles when I finished, but there were so many turns and opportunities to trim those turns that I won’t claim the course was short, I think my watch just cheated me a little. I don’t recall seeing a USTF certification, but I’m not exactly trying out for the Olympics, so who cares if it was a little short or not.

Overall this was a pleasant experience and I’m sure I’ll do it again. I think a B+ for the overall grade. Would be in the A range if they separated the two races more, either in time, location or both. 

P.F. Chang’s Rock and Roll Arizona

This year’s half marathon featured a new course and a corresponding rearrangement of the finish area. I don’t do the marathon but from what I understand that stayed the same, with one big exception. The part of this race that I didn’t like in the past was that you had to arrive super early to catch a bus to the starting area. Since the half marathon, which is the bulk of the runners, no longer starts 13 miles away, they no longer have buses. This leaves the marathoners to take the light rail system to the start. Since their start and our start was at the same time, I never met anyone doing the marathon, which felt a little odd, but I’ve done halves without a full before. I can’t share any opinions on the use of the light rail for that reason.

After several years of running this race, I still don’t seem to have the timing of the parking lot down. From the time I stopped on the backed up highway about a half mile short of the exit until the time I was parked in a spot that I’m not even sure I was legally in, was about fifty minutes. The starting line was about eight tenths of a mile from where I parked so I didn’t have time to go through my usual routine. That wasn’t too big of a deal, I rarely get to properly warm up and stretch at big races. All of the Rock and Roll events fall into that category. I’ve found that if I just don’t go out too fast I seem to do okay. I try to get a good time, but I don’t go for broke at every race for a couple of reasons. First, big races tend to not yield great times because of crowding and second because I run so many halves a year I would really get worn out if I spent everything every time.

Back to this year’s race….the new course was definitely an upgrade to previous years. Although I live in the Phoenix area I’m not really familiar with the areas of town that the old course ran through and I’m fairly sure I don’t want to be. I’m sure there are rougher, heck MUCH rougher parts of town here, but we ran past hookers, drug addicts and what felt like every pawn shop east of L.A. The old course featured graffiti and broken glass, so kudos on recognizing we didn’t care for it that much. The new course runs through the area surrounding Arizona State University, the older parts of Scottsdale and finally ends very similarly to what it used to with several miles in the Papago Park area of Phoenix. The first ten miles of the course are slightly uphill and although you rarely feel like you’re going uphill, my thighs were aware of it. The last 5k was all downhill and although I was tired from not getting enough distance work in, the downhill helped keep me less than 8 minute miles. I’ve run faster races overall but I extremely happy with how consistent my pace was for this race. My fastest and slowest miles didn’t even differ by 40 seconds if I recall correctly.

The shirts this year were nice and simple; they weren’t coated with corporate sponsors or extra graphics like many races. The shirt itself was of good quality too. The number and finisher medal of the quality you can expect from a race in the Rock and Roll series. The medals are rarely super unique, but they’re always nice. Since we spend so much money on these races it would nice if the medals weren’t so predictable, but again, they’re nice and at least you get one. I read in the pre-race directions that I would be able to pick up my desert dual (or is it duel?) medal for having done both Las Vegas and Phoenix but I was unable to find the booth. Large races require large finish areas and navigating to your car is hard enough after running 13 or 26 miles, so I suspect I wasn’t the only one who didn’t find this booth. I hope they still mail them.

I’ve lived in Phoenix for 5 1/2 years now and I’ve run this race probably 4 of those years. In previous years I swore I would never do it again, but still did. This year I won’t say that. Parking issue aside (I’ll just go earlier) I had a good time. I better understand where to go and what the course is like. Maybe next year I can talk my brothers into coming out and visiting for this race.

28th Annual Resolution Run 5k

Just like the other resolution runs I've done, I was pretty happy. They give a nice long sleeve T-shirt and awards in groups of 5 years for runners and separate 10 year groups for walkers. The shirt changes color in the sun and I'll include a second photo at the end with it in the sun, it's kind of neat. I wonder how many times you can wash it before that effect goes away or if it is permanent.

I don't normally write about other runners but I'll make this exception and throw a shout out to the 11 year old girl who was the overall woman's champ. I'm not good with ages but I knew she was fairly young. I was shocked when I checked the results at the end and found out just how young she was. There were several really good youngsters in the race today as well as several very good older runners. I believe the overall winner was 61 and came in running 5:55 minutes per mile! (I literally don't run that fast in my dreams and definitely not 22 years from now!) So with some quick math, the overall men's and overall woman's winners were 50 years apart, how cool is that!

I learned a valuable lesson today about my new "racing flats". The Nike Free 3.0 that I've been using for races have a deep waffle pattern on the bottom that make them super flexible. This is normally a good thing, but I had never used them at the Papago park area. A good portion of the course is pseudo cross country as you use a hard packed dirt and gravel path along the canals. The small rocks and such get caught between the nubs of my shoes! This wasn't much of an issue until I returned to the road and I was clicking like I was wearing cross country spikes. Much later on when I changed into my regular running shoes I pulled about two dozens rocks out of my shoes. I like the Papago course but I'll have to choose different shoes from now on.

In the end, a nice race.

Run, Walk and Roll

I ran my first run of 2012 and it couldn't have had a more pleasant morning. The Run, Walk and Roll race http://www.runwalkrollaz.com offers both chair races and running/walking at 5k and 10k. I ran the 10k. The Tempe Beach park area is a great place for a run and I've been there before.

Although this was a pretty small race, they still had a decent "swag" bag that is one of those reusable grocery bags with some miscellaneous stuff in it. I not a huge fan of green but the T-shirt was decent, see the picture. I haven't seen a small race in quite some time that had vendor tents and even though there weren't a bunch of them it was nice.

I've run a 10k at Tempe Town Lake before and it was a 5k run twice, I was very pleasantly surprised that it was not the case today. I had a chance to run in parts of the park I had not run in before. The path that wraps around the park in not very wide maybe 10 or 12 feet, this was not a problem as far as I could tell but I tend to not be in larger clumps of runners. The honorary starters were both former cast members of the Biggest Loser, I'm terrible with names but I did recognize the young lady from one of the seasons I watched (Ally or Abby or something like that). They both spoke and it seemed they were associated with the charity the race was for in some way, she indicated this wasn't her first year at the race.

My only negative about the race would be that the age groups were in ten year increments and being a 39 year old who finished fourth to two 33 and a 31 year old, it would have been nice to win something, but smaller races tend to not have five year age groups, especially if they have multiple races to award.

The 5k started fifteen minutes after the 10k so hopefully the two races didn't run into each other. The finish line was shared, but the two races only joined each other with a few meters to go, so it's unlikely runners from the two races interfered with one another.

My overall grade would be an A. I suspect the turnout is not too large with the Rock and Roll races next weekend and other races in the valley this weekend (I'll be posting again tomorrow!), however this was a nice course and well organized. I would definitely suggest it for both those new to running or those who have been running for a long time.

Looking back, running forward

2011 has come and gone. Although living in the past is not recommended, I would also advise against ignoring it. I like to set goals each year, as most do, and also see how I did the previous year. In summary, for my first goal I wanted to run at least 6 half marathons, I blew that goal out of the water with nine. My second goal was to run 1,000 miles in 2011. I didn't make that goal, but I'm not at all disappointed. In my adult life, I had never strung together enough running to even get 500 miles in a calendar year. My data only goes back to 2001 so I guess I'm counting my 20s as not being part of my adulthood, this may be accurate!

So, what are my goals for 2012? First, I now want that 1,000 miles more than ever so it is top on my list. Although I ran 9 half marathons last year, I don't know that I want to repeat or increase that. I'm sticking with the goal of 6 races with at least 2 of them in "new" states. ("new" states refer to my membership in www.half2run.com) I've already bought a trip to Portland, Oregon in May, so at least one more new state. I will run the same two "local" half marathons I have the past three years in January and March. So basically, I have a race every other month for the first half of the year. My third goal is to run more short local races, I miss doing 5k, 5M and 10k races. I think decreasing the distance per race and increasing the number of them run makes sense, I did 16 races last year, lets make it 20 this year.

2011

Runs = 162
Total Miles = 929.36
Best week = 34.92 miles
Worst week = 0 miles (three times)
Pairs of shoes purchased = 4

Race Count
5k = 5
10k = 1
½ Marathon = 9
5 Mile = 1
Others = 0
Total = 16


Best times
5k = 22:06*
10k = 49:57
½ Marathon = 1:39:39
5 miler = 38:05*

*same day

Most popular route = 121
States run in for 2011 = Ohio, Arizona, Missouri, Washington, Texas, California, Nevada, Florida*
Total states ½ Marathoned in = 11 (added 3 this year)
*not a race

There is no finish line....yeah, whatever.

I've always found the saying "there is no finish" hokey. I get the point, but I also love the notion of a finish line. I'm goal oriented by nature and therefore NEED finish lines. I think the key is to never run out of finish lines and never be satisfied with the finish line you just crossed. That being said, I've decided to start up a running blog again. 2011 was my first year in forever, that I stuck with running even with injuries and illness. My goal for the year was to run 1,000 miles. I didn't make that goal, but didn't exactly have a horrible year despite missing that. I was well above pace to make my goal going into September when my running life hit the fan. During the River Run in my hometown I aggravated the partially torn ACL I've had for years and hurt my hamstring pretty bad. I finished the race, which hindsight lets me know was a stupid idea, but I've never DNF'd in my life. In the coming months I would lose several weeks to respiratory and sinus infections I picked up in Miami and then later a nasty cold I picked up in Las Vegas. I will never stop traveling for conferences or runs, but I hope I stop bringing back illness.

I will probably run shortly after this blog, so I won't sum up my year just yet, I'll leave that for New Year's day. However, in the coming year this blog will have race reviews, my quest to find the best running routines, travel stories related to running, stories about people I meet or cities I run and much more, but ultimately all related to running is some way or another.

As you can tell by the title of the blog, running is important to me and it is not just a hobby it is a part of my life. I have a life long quest to visit every state in the United States and a subset of that life long quest is run a half marathon in half the states.

Thank you 2011 and everyone who ran it with me (especially my brother who has caught the love of running spark).

My Countdown