The 2009 racing season is officially underway. This past Saturday, I ran the KY Derby Festival Mini-Marathon in Louisville, KY. This was a B race and the culmination of my recent run focus. I have raced this course in the past (3 times in high school and last year), so this would be my 5th, and I was looking for a new PR. I had put some significant thought into my race plan since the build-up was so long and felt confident in my training. It was probably the most consistent I’ve ever trained, particularly in one discipline. My training plan had me running 4 times per week (16 week plan) and I only missed 3 workouts for the entire plan, none of them long runs or speed work. Also, my wife, sister, mom, dad, cousin, and couple friends were also running it...plenty of people to keep track of. Enough setup, on to the race report...
Friday night
The wife and I carpooled with some friends down from Cincinnati and went straight to packet pickup when we got to Louisville. For some reason, they decided to put packet pickup in the same Expo Center where other Derby Festival activities were taking place that night, so traffic was kind of a cluster. We still managed to get in and out quickly and now had our race numbers and t-shirts. The next stop was my parents’ house to drop off our baggage and our dog that was eager to get out of the car by that point; then quickly off to dinner.
Friday night, I ate far too much at dinner and then proceeded to stay up late watching NBA playoffs (which I’m really not that interested in) with a friend. Oh well, it’s a B race right. If nothing else, it certainly kept my mind off the race and making myself nervous.
Saturday AM
Alarms go off at 5:30am. Everyone’s up, dressed, and out the door by 6:15. There was a lot of activity in that window considering we had 6 runners in the house. I ended up leaving my banana behind…that worried me a little since I always have a banana pre running races. However, I was already worried about still being able to feel dinner a little bit so figured the banana would probably make things worse more than anything. A little closer to race start, I also scrapped my pre-race gel w/ caffeine that I normally take, so I had no food pre-race. Anyways, my aunt (who has run the race multiple times in the past, but attempted to sign up too late this year) was generous enough to give us a ride to the start line, so that made the morning go pretty easy. I decided to run along with the 3:10 marathon pacer for the first couple miles since I haven’t been very good at holding back my pace of late. I headed into corral A, found the pacer who is apparently someone of note in the running world (Dane Rauschenberg) who recently ran 52 marathons on consecutive weekends to raise money for charity. He gave a little pep-talk to the 3:10 marathon hopefuls, and soon thereafter, the gun went off.
Miles 1-3
These first three miles basically loop around the neighborhoods outside Iroquois park and are flat. Since you loop, you can see the start area spectators quite a bit so the support is good here. There is also a good deal of shade, which was nice since it was unseasonably warm for the race. We took off with temps in the low 70’s with little wind. I ran off to the side of the pack huddled around Mr. 3:10 pace, but made sure not to shoot ahead of him. We hit mile 3 in 21:35 on my watch, and made our way into the park and the hills.
Miles 4-6
The park is basically 5 rolling hills. You start climbing almost immediately and “bounce” your way through the rest of the park. It’s nicely shaded, but as far as crowd support it’s on the patchy side. This is where you’ll also commonly see runners run off into the woods for bathroom breaks, something I’ve gotten used to over the years here. I focused on keeping my cadence up while climbing with shorter strides and managed to pass quite a few people and put some distance on the 3:10 marathon pace group with relatively little effort through the park climbs. I would then focus on coasting the down hills to make sure I wasn’t over exerting early on. Before I knew it, I encountered the old man with the boom box who yells at everyone during the last hill (he’s been there every year I’ve raced, sometimes in costume yelling “kill the hill!” or something of that nature) and knew I was almost out. In this race you simultaneously start descending the last climb as you leave the park, so the spectators line up all along the hill. It’s a great feeling to have the rush of crowd support and know your done with hills at the same time (if you’re doing the half-marathon).
Miles 7-10
This section is basically a long straightaway leading to Churchill Downs, then a loop around the infield before another straightaway toward downtown and the finish. I passed a group of college students with their “you’re still running, we’re still drinking” t-shirts and got into cruise control for the next couple miles. I also had my mid-race gel at mile 7. The shade is much spottier through here, so I started to notice the heat for the first time. It wasn’t setting me back at all, but you could tell when you were in direct sunlight. As I approached Churchill Downs I first started to feel the fatigue. The mile in the infield was pretty brutal since there’s no protection from the sun and as I headed out of the track I was having my first doubts. I was about :40 secs ahead of my goal pace at this point, but mile 9 looked like it would be the key point of the race. I hit a much needed water station and got both water and powerade, then decided to go on the offensive. If it was going to get uncomfortable I figured I might as well be going fast…then if the wheels fall off I’ll have put a little more time into my goal pace and may be able hang on in the end. I hit mile 10 almost exactly 1 minute ahead of goal pace.
Miles 11-13.1 (finish)
Somewhere during the 11th mile, I caught my second wind (whew!). I attribute my energy boost to a mixture of a well timed sprinkler to run through and “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen rocking through my iPod. I hit mile 11 and was about 1:20 up on my goal. At this point, I felt the rush of knowing that I’d be hitting my goal time and that just boosted my newfound energy…so I pushed on. As I got more excited, I started interacting with the crowd, giving some kids high fives and what not, and it just seemed to fuel me more. The last few miles are flat, but almost entirely exposed to the sun, so luckily in my runner’s high I was oblivious to the heat. I kept turning up the speed a little more and starting passing runners…a lot of them. In the last ½ mile, I could feel the pain, but was close enough to not let it effect me. I pulled out what sprint I could muster, and turned the corner to the finish line (there’s a turn about .1 mile to go). The crowd was awesome here as always as I crossed the line. My watch put me at a somewhere in the low 1:32 range.
Post race
I grabbed what nutrition I needed immediately and a granola bar and made my way back around the finish to look for everyone else. I was glad to not be on the course anymore as the heat was definitely uncomfortable now. To give an idea, the marathon winner this year was 20 minutes slower than last year. However, everyone in my family toughed it out and made it to the finish. Success
Stats
Time: 1:32:11 120/~9300 finishers total
Unfortunately I was unable to get any pictures since I didn’t carry my camera during the race and couldn’t locate the friend who had my camera at the finish line until it was too late. I’m glad to get the season off on the right foot, now back to training for my first tri in 3 weeks.
