Race Report: Running Is My High 2013

Just came back from a local 5K in Oakland, CA. Running Is My High is a charity 5K/10K to support healthcare availability in the local Native American community and the atmosphere really reflected the casual exercise + health-centric nature of the race. In fact, the race was open to anyone, regardless if you registered or not. Registration netted you the bib, time chip and a pretty cool hat or bag. There weren't any sporting brands at the "expo," mostly healthcare organization info booths. As someone in the healthcare field with a deep interest in social support and physical activity events as under-promoted strategies to combat chronic health problems, I never really gave it a second thought as to whether I was going to register. I had actually registered last year but got called up to work a shift a the last second and didn't end up running.

Oakland Lake Merritt is one of the more beautiful parts of the city. I know a lot of folks imagine Oakland as an inner-city cesspool, but there are certainly gems to find all over the place and Lake Merritt is one of them. The 5K course is basically a run around the lake and what makes it nice for a competitive runner is that the lake course is USATF certified as a 5K. My GPS read it as 3.28 miles, the extra distance to which I attribute to some recent construction blocking the normal route. Its incredibly flat over 85% pavement with a smattering of packed dirt trails. One rolling hill over a bridge and that's it. I consider it one of my primary training grounds.

Oakland Lake Merritt.

Start time was newbie and recreational runner friendly at 9am. About 450 runners registered, a record for this race. After picking up my bib and running swag (a well made running cap), I started warming up 20 minutes before the gun in my Vivobarefoot Ultras. I picked them up office shoes as my back just can't handle super high heel lifts of dress shoes anymore. Been one of the best shoe purchases I've made and I'll be posting a review on them soon. I noticed the casual nature of the crowd, with only one other person wearing racers (Lisa with the cool looking New Balance 1600s). A few strides here and there and I laced up my Mizuno Ekidens, ready to race and taking a spot right at the front of the pack.

Swag.

After a few words from guest speakers on the topics of Native Americans and the state of health along with running heritage (which was pretty motivational), we took off. As this was a casual crowd, it was no surprise to see a couple of teens take off at a good 5:30/mile pace. While high school track kids can certainly pull this kind of pace off, judging from the dress of the sprinters (basketball shorts), I made the assumption that they were simply misjudging their race pace by quite a bit and weren't actually trying to establish position. I made the decision to pull back to an early 6:30/mile pace for about a quarter mile before settling into my 7:05/mile target pace. This paid off by the end of mile 1, when just about all the early sprinters began to drop off rapidly. As it was hectic in the beginning, I couldn't tell how many were in front of me. I could see Lisa, whom I had seen at a previous race in which I volunteered and I knew her to be around the 21:00/5K mark. I considered trying to pace her but felt she was probably too fast and would burn me out early. I decided on a steady 7:05/mile even splits race, even though I felt I could push it to 6:50/mile. I was treating this race as a practice run for my real goal: The Oakland Running Festival coming up in two weeks.

Two males began to catch up and slowly pulled ahead of me. I decided not to give chase until I was in the final 0.5 miles of the race. At this point we hit construction, and after nearly getting lost, I found my way up a bridge. This rolling hill caused the last of the teenagers to drop out. At around this point I got to test out some offroading for my Ekidens as I had to make a course correction by running through a severe downhill slope of woodchips. I was expecting lots of pointing jaggies stabbing my foot, but the Ekidens were surprisingly tough.

For mile 2 through 2.5 I was just about alone (or so I thought). I could spot Lisa about 200 meters ahead, a teenager about 100 meters ahead and one male who had passed me keeping a steady 30 meters distance from me. I was never able to catch him, but I did catch up to the teenager as he began to gas in the final quarter mile. At this point in my head I knew there were at least 4 males ahead of me along with Lisa. I had already given up on placing as I couldn't even spot any of the males other than the teenager now pulling away again. I began to gas myself and was entering the "just push it" section of the race. When I spotted the finish line about 100 meters ahead, I put myself into 70% sprint speed, figuring I would just finish it strong but not give it my all to save myself for the Oakland race. The crowd was roaring as I came in, which surprised me a bit. I found out why about 10 meters from the finish line as a teenager sprinted past me at full speed.

I learned from my exacerbated friend 5 seconds later that that teen took 3rd place from me. I hadn't realized that the 2 other adults who were ahead of me were actually part of the 10K race. I guess I'm maturing in my racing career because I just had a little laugh about it. I switched to my Vivobarefoot Ultras, which felt like Heaven at this point. Grabbed some free snacks and introduced myself to Lisa (she won the women's division!). At this point the teen who beat me by a few meters came up kind of upset as he had looked at the printed results and claimed he wasn't on the list at all and wanted me to talk to the organizers. I was a little turned off by how seriously he was taking it, but hey, who knows, making sure he got the recognition for his running achievement might encourage him to get deeper into the sport (he was wearing basketball shorts, so I was assuming he was a newbie like me). Which would be a good thing and very much in the spirit of this particular charity race.

Best. Post-race shoes. Ever.

After a quick talk we corrected it with the timers. I and the organizer who witnessed the "sprint off" held back a chuckle when the timer asked the excited teen how much further ahead he thought he was of me by the finish and he replied with an answer of 12 seconds. My estimate was maybe 0.5 seconds (3 meters at sprint speed), but I went ahead and said 2 seconds. Organizer agreed to that. We discovered at that point that the reason his time didn't registered is because he tied the wrong strip for his D-chip to his shoe. Definitely a newbie.

And that was it. I had a great time, $15 for a timed race was insanely cheap, got to meet a fellow runner whom I expect to meet very often from this point on (I even convinced her to race the Oakland Running Festival with me!......so I can secretly pace her, haha), got some swag, contributed to a good charity, tested out my Mizuno Ekidens in race conditions and got a good estimate of my abilities for the upcoming Oakland 5K, which holds particular importance to me as it will be my 1 year anniversary racing.

And oh, final time: 23:24. Exactly matching my Oakland 5K time from last year. Except this race was 0.12 miles longer on my GPS watch and I definitely wasn't going all out. Goal in two weeks: sub-22. Wish me luck.