Lung Run Extravaganza

I finally have a chance to give you guys a race report from the Lung Run. I’ve been editing EMBA Major Research Projects non-stop for about three weeks now, but it looks like I have the night off (fingers crossed) – maybe I’ll even get a full-night’s sleep tonight. Yay!

Okay, so. If you scroll down this blog page a bit and look at the right-hand column, you’ll notice that my PB for the 5k has changed: it’s now 17:09. Ya hoo! Not only that – we raised $310 for the NS Lung Association! Not bad at all. I was actually really moved by how generous people were with donations. When I sent out those emails, I kind of figured they’d be ignored. Not so!

The race was a big success for the NSLA – they had over 500 people show up for the kid’s 1.5k and the general 5k. Those are huge numbers for a local race – it’s really established itself as the premier 5k event in the province. And there were some big guns running. The kid who won is from down the South Shore in Bridgewater, and not only was he a provincial high school champion, but he also represented Canada at the World Junior Cross-Country championships in Poland not too long ago. He won this race in around 15:30 – not bad for a day with 40-50km/h winds in pretty much every direction!

The top female crossed the line in 17:30 – another blistering time, given the conditions. She was ahead of me for the first 800m or so before I pulled ahead. I was thinking that she could tuck in behind me and draft during the first mile, which was straight into the big wind, but she fell off the pace after another half a k.

That first mile was brutal. First of all, I made my usual mistake of lining up behind slower people, which forced me to weave in and out of runners for the first 200m in order to establish my pace. I’m not sure why I do that at bigger races. Part of me thinks that lining up a bit back will prevent me from going out too quickly, but it doesn’t – it just makes me waste energy trying to pick my way through the crowd, and it keeps me from establishing an efficient rhythm right from the start. At the same time, it feels a bit cocky to toe the line with guys I know are going to leave me in the dust, although not everyone who lines up in front stays in front. It’s funny – there’s a strange etiquette in the starting pack, and where you seed yourself communicates exactly how you see your own running. And I don’t want to be that guy who lines up in front but always finishes mid-pack – there’s one guy in particular who always pulls that shit, and everyone knows it but him. Alas.

Anyway... like I was saying... that first mile was brutal – after getting out of the crowd and making the first big turn from south to north after about 200m, we hit a monstrous head wind along Terminal Road. Man, it sucked. But I just locked in my effort level and focussed on cycling my hips (like Cliff always says, although nobody’s really sure what the hell he’s on about). There was a clock at the one-mile mark, and I could see as I was approaching it that I was way off pace. Usually I’m too fast over the first mile, but this time I was too slow. I was looking for a 5:20 or better, but I crossed at 5:30. From that moment on, I knew I had to adjust my expectations.

I’d hoped turning back south after mile one would mean an awesome tail wind – but this is Halifax, and this is the North Atlantic – there’s no such thing as a tail wind: there are only heavy head winds and lighter head winds. So I sucked it up, stayed focused on what I had to do to stay strong and just gutted the last two miles. There was only one hill of any note, which makes this the flattest and fastest race on the RNS calendar. The lack of hills made it easier to maintain the effort – but down the stretch, I could see the clock ticking away, and although I gave it everything over those last 200m, I couldn’t dip under 17. Alas.

But it was a fun race, and it was still a big PB. At first, I was pretty disappointed at missing the sub-17, but I got over it fairly quickly, especially as I saw the folks from the Learn-to Run group cross the line. They were awesome – and later they gave both Nick and me thank you cards with generous gifts tucked inside. I may not have finished top 3 to win shoes (actually, I was well back in 13th), but I got a gift certificate that will take me much of the way to a new pair. Those guys were great.

Anyway – the Lung Run made me super optimistic for the upcoming season. Next stop is the Greenwood 10k in just over a week. I’m looking to dip under 36 minutes in that one. But first, I need to get at least a couple of full sleeps!