First off, I totally psyched myself up for this race too much. I made a goal to finish in under 31 minutes, hopefully closer to 30. I planned a race strategy and it was all I thought about on New Year's Eve. Thankfully, it worked out, but I have vowed not too work myself up for races like this anymore! It's much more fun to run for the fun of it!
Meg (my wife), my father-in-law Duane Saxton, and my mother-in-law Michelle Saxton arrived at Big Flats American Legion at 11:15 for the noon race. It was a great community event put on by the Southern Tier Running Club. We saw many friends including Deb Vandelinder, Carrie Hale and even our Representative Tom Reed!
Race temperature was a balmy 19 degrees. At 11:40, I decided it would be a good idea to go out for a brief warm up run. I chose to run at a pace that was about 15-30 seconds slower than I wanted to run for my race pace. Oh man was I glad that I decided to warm up! My legs had the feeling of having bricks attached to them. By the end of the warm up my legs had a loosened up and were ready to go!
I had already decided that my race strategy would be to run at 90-95% of my 5K pace while picking people a few dozens yards ahead of me to pick off one at a time. I started with only about 15-20 people ahead of me so pretty quickly I was in 10th place and there were no more people to pass. Thankfully, I found a 64 year old man who was going exactly the pace I desired. During the entire race I would keep him about a dozen paces ahead of me as a measure. This man was not only fast, but he was effortless at doing it as well. While I was huffing, puffing, drooling and spitting, he was galloping easily ahead of me. I would like to thank him for getting me through the race at a great pace.
During the race it began to snow, giving the race a calm beautiful winter atmosphere. The bad part was that the cold caused parts of the course to be dangerously slippery (just one of the many hazards of being a runner!) A part of the course went through Big Flats Community Park. The road/trail was very icey and a couple of participants fell during that portion of the race.
The first mile of the race went great. As well as the second. After that, however, realizing I still had half a race to run was quite daunting. It was around mile two where I passed a few motorists going the other way that obviously didn't understand the concept of the pedestrian having the right of way. I'm going to get up on my soapbox here for a second... If you are driving towards a runner please give them plenty of room to run by. I will do everything possible to get out of your way as well. I understand that sometimes it is hard to give a runner an appropriate amount of room because of traffic coming in the opposite direction. If so, please slow down. It is much more important to be safe than to get somewhere 5 seconds sooner. OK, stepping off the soapbox now.
Mile three was quite tough. I did have my runner guide to get me through it though. Thank God for him, because there was not a runner a 1/4 mile ahead of us or behind. There were a couple up hill portions during this mile which made it a little better. You'll come to learn, I LOVE hills!
After mile three I had to dig deep! Considering I was going close to my 5K pace I was now entering un-chartered territory. I have run 5Ks, 10Ks, 15Ks, Half-Marathons, and a Marathon, but never a 4 mile race. This was a race pace that I had never tried before. If the race had ended at 5K I would have had about a 22:30 time, which would be about 45 seconds off my PR. It being winter I thought that was pretty awesome. The last mile was tough. I totally misjudged where I was on the course. I forgot that there was a significant hill before the end of the race, so I kicked it up a notch entirely too early. I passed my race buddy and was in 9th place. And then there was the hill...
I know what you're all saying, "You love hills, why are you going to complain about one?!"
I had used what little energy I had left in my kick. So that hill was tough! My runner buddy passed me on the way back down the hill and we coasted through the last 1/4 mile and I finished with a time of 30:23. I met my goal! Yeah!!!
I ended up getting 10th place in the race only finishing 5 minutes from the winner. Meg ran with her dad and mom. Michelle and Duane even got 3rd place in their age groups, respectively! I think Michelle's face was redder from getting her medal than from the run itself!
Thanks again to the Southern Tier Running Club for putting on a great race and for Yellow Jacket Racing for doing the timing and results. I had a great time and many memories were made!
Below is a picture from the finish line and here is a link to the story from WENY-TV NEWS. You can see me plodding along at :25. I'm wearing all the neon...
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HAPPY RUNNING
Nice recap! We are glad you and your family joined us. Congrats on the awards!
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