| October 2002 Newsletter |
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Pud's Report From Adam
It's been one of those summers. Heat, travel, nagging injuries (including a pulled quadricep in the first 100 feet of intervals on Wednesday) - it's all combined for an unintended few months of about 12 to 15 miles a week with almost no speed work. My first road race since May was the Scotty's 5K in Newark Valley two weeks ago, where I ran an unimpressive, though pain-free, 18:14.
Then there was a night-before-the-race wedding dinner (best wishes to my friends Laura Daly and Graham Dobson!) of food so amazing I felt compelled to try a full helping of everything a second time, just in case I'd been hallucinating on the first plate. (I also had a nice chat with a guy named Kit Blackmore, who said he used to run with FLRC and had actually won the 10 mile in the 5&10 years ago during the Predmore/Pfitzinger days, though luckily with neither of them in that particular race.)
So I had no expectations at all for Pud's Run today. I was hoping to finish, but if the quadricep acted up the way it had on Wednesday, I'd be dropping out faster than Timothy Leary. If I did finish, I figured I'd be ecstatic with anything under 18 minutes, given the last race and what little training I'd been able to get in since.
As the start time approached, I realized there were a couple of factors in my favor. The weather was cool (well, comparatively so, probably the low 70s), and because this race is popular with kids, there were a ton of them lined up at the start, guaranteed to go out too fast and let me pass them in the first mile. When the gun went off, my prediction was right, as all the teenagers surged ahead of me for the first loop through Stewart Park. Charlene Lyford was there ahead of me too, and it took me until the first mile to catch her, just as I'd done in Scotty's 5K a few weeks earlier (she turned out to be the first woman, I believe, though she wasn't able to maintain her first mile pace of about 5:35 and thus missed her course record of 17:27 by a good bit). John Hylas also went by me about that time - the other High Nooner ahead of me was Casey Carlstrom, who I barely saw the entire race.
The second mile proved key, since that's where I'd lost focus during the Scotty's 5K and had watch John pull away in the distance. This time I kept him in sight, aided by the mental boost of picking off a few more teenagers who hadn't yet fallen by the wayside. I was also keying off Michael Leonard, another local runner who'd I'd beaten earlier in the spring, but who had toasted me at Scotty's 5K. As we wound through the Ithaca High School parking lot and out to Cayuga Street, I managed to pull past Michael and hold the position. John was still in sight further down Cayuga Street, so I tried to keep my concentration and pace. The second mile went by in about 5:43, give or take a few seconds because the split was during a water stop, and although I might be capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, splashing a cup of water on my head and hitting the split button on my watch was a bit much.
Then it was all down to the last 1.1 miles, where I tried in vain to catch the group of four right ahead of me, so I gritted my teeth and pushed on into the finish, watching John pass a teenager who then passed him back at the finish. I had no kick at all, but no one was right behind me, so there wasn't that incentive. I came through in 15th place in 17:31, which is only 5 seconds slower than my PR for the year in May, when I ran a cold and lonely 5K in 17:26.
All in all, a great race, and one that did wonders for restoring my morale. Now if I can just stave off the injuries and get some quality training in, I might even be in shape for cross country.
One oddity: the goody bag from Pud's contained a new kind of candy bar that made no pretense of being healthy, some new form of "moist towelettes" (perhaps because of the chicken barbecue, which had a line way too long to wait through?), and a bar of soap. I'm all for subtle hints, but were we THAT dirty?
-- Adam Engst
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