Run Away With Cirque Du Soleil 5K

Today is my first race of 2008, "Seventh Annual Run Away With Cirque Du Soleil 5k!" My last 5k race was March 17, 2007, "Come Catch a Leprechaun 5k," which was over a year ago!! During that last race my finishing time was 22:36 with a pace of 7:16 minute miles. I've been doing intervals for marathon training and hope it has helped with maintaining my speed.

The weather is perfect for racing!! Clear, 57 degrees with winds of 7mph from the southwest, hence the weather isn't going to be a factor today. This is the first race ever at the Springs Preserve and don't know what to expect with the terrain or tangents, I'll just have to play it by ear. I'm wearing my lightweight training shoes that I use for racing, the "ASICS GEL-DS Trainers #12," but worry they'll be insufficient if the course is dirt, gravel, or cross-country.

I arrived home from work at 2:15 a.m. and went immediately to bed as the race starts at 7:45 a.m. I awoke at 7:00 a.m., ate a small breakfast of Raisin Bran and sliced bananas with skim milk. Arrived at the race ten minutes before the start...already hundreds of racers were all bunched at the starting line. This is the largest 5k race I've ever ran, usually about 200-300 runners would run a local 5k race, but today 720 runners are running this course. I was able to squeeze myself to about 2/3 down from the start, thankfully the race has chip mats and won't affect my placing.

Mayor Oscar Goodman started the race with a shotgun blast. I quickly realized as we all strive to reach the starting line that I wouldn't be accomplishing any personal records in this race, rather than suffer zig-zagging all the walkers and slow joggers I'll run this race as a tempo run. Even as a tempo run this race is ridiculous as the course has many curves, angles, sharp tangents, steady climbs, and a cut-back only within 1/2 mile from the start. The course wasn't sufficient for the number of runners present as sometimes I was in lock-step with others who were trapped in the crowd. The course narrows to three abreast and then widens to a whole road causing me to jog at certain points followed by a wild sprint. My splits and heart rates from my Garmin are as follows:

Mile 1: Time, 7:53. Heart Rate 169 bpm. (Maximum heart rate is 190 bpm)
Mile 2: Time, 7:24. Heart Rate 177 bpm.
Mile 3: Time, 8:03. Heart Rate 178 bpm.
Finishing time 24:03.

My Garmin had reached 3.11 miles before I actually finished the course, undoubtedly I didn't cut many of the tangents sharp enough and ran farther, and/or the course wasn't measured correctly...I believe I ran farther due to missing the tangents as the crowd was too tight. Anyways, the final times was as follows:

Gun Time: 26:00
Chip Time: 24:50
Garmin Time: 24:03

During the race I had forgotten that my fellow age groupers could also be suffering from the crowds and was surprised I won Third Place in my age group, which consisted of 11 racers.

The following cross table is interesting as note the gun start and chip start of the winner in my age group:

MALE AGE GROUP: 55 - 59
Place Gun_tm Chip_tm Pace Name Age City, State
===== ======= ======= ===== ================== === ================
1 21:05 21:04 6:47 MARCO CHAVARRIA 55 LAS VEGAS NV
2 23:43 23:32 7:35 DON BIGGER 55 LAS VEGAS NV
3 26:00 24:50 8:00 BRUCE ROBISON 56 LAS VEGAS NV
4 25:33 25:17 8:09 LOU AVENA 56 LAS VEGAS NV
5 27:33 27:14 8:46 CHARLES BILBERRY 56 LAS VEGAS NV
6 28:54 28:47 9:16 GARY EISNOR 57 LAS VEGAS NV
7 29:40 29:27 9:29 KEITH POEHL 58 WACO TX
8 34:21 34:20 11:03 MICHAEL BUCKLEY 57 LAS VEGAS NV
9 38:06 37:36 12:06 JAMES CULLEN 58 LAS VEGAS NV
10 48:42 48:41 15:40 WILLIAM BOW 57 HOLLIDAYSBURG PA
11 1:06:26 1:06:00 21:15 CARLOS RAMIREZ 55 LAS VEGAS NV

I should mention that in previous races when things didn't go well or as planned I would suffer depression and beat myself up, this race was different, I appraised the situation, changed my goal to a tempo run, and actually had fun.