| October 2002 Newsletter |
|
And So Does Adam . . .
At the Ithaca 5 & 10 this year, I was looking forward to a cool, crisp, autumn race. Mid-September would be perfect for getting past the August heat and humidity, I thought. The 5 & 10 is even a fairly early start, at 9 AM, so if the day is going to heat up, a 9 AM start should cut down on most of it.
Clearly, whoever is in charge of the weather was thinking, "What a sucker."
It wasn't that hot, only about 75 degrees, but it was nearly that temperature when I got up at 7:00 AM. Worse, it was very nearly 100 percent humidity. I'd run on Thursday with a guy at High Noon who spent a few years in Thailand, and he said the humidity there was far worse than anything we had here. That may be true, and we may be weather wimps, but for local conditions, 75 degrees and extremely high humidity is just disgusting. Normally I barely break a sweat jogging to warm up - on Sunday I broke a sweat stretching.
Oh, and then there was the rain. I won't say mean things about the rain because it was the only thing that made the weather bearable. I presume the raindrops hadn't had time to warm up fully on their way down from the clouds, since they felt cool, and there sure as heck wasn't any evaporation going on. After the race, I was wringing water out of my nylon shorts for half an hour.
The weather probably didn't help attendance, at least for the people who generally register late. It was instantly noticeable at the start, because I knew all the people at the front from High Noon, FLRC, the Triennial Trail Relay, or other races. And as the gun went off and we headed down toward Stewart Park, I remarked to Casey Carlstrom that there weren't any of the crazy kids who normally sprint out at the start and fade after 800 meters.
From my perspective, the race settled out quickly. Two guys I didn't know took the lead, and after a few miles I didn't see them any more. Casey and Earl Steinbrecher ran together in third and fourth for about three miles, then Casey said that Earl picked it up and left him behind. Then Tim Ingall and Kevin Coughlin stayed with one another in fifth and sixth places, with me trailing about 30 meters behind. And it stayed like that for quite a while, into and out of Stewart Park, past Deeb's corner, by Ithaca Falls, onto whatever street it was we took to the Commons (as someone who grew up in Ithaca, I'm allowed to not know any of the street names - I can find almost anything, but just don't ask for directions), and all the way down.
It wasn't until we passed the parking garage that I finally caught and passed Tim, who'd been slipping back from Kevin slightly. Kevin wasn't that much ahead, and as I worked hard down Cayuga Street (I think), I figured I could catch him. The bridge under construction slowly came into sight, and I decided that I'd surge past Kevin right before the pedestrian bridge, then kick in to the finish.
It was a nice idea, but one that was utterly derailed by the little loop thrown into the course for some reason or another (the loop wasn't there last year when the course was run in the opposite direction - perhaps the starting line moved). I caught Kevin and passed him about where I'd wanted, but I simply couldn't deal mentally with the concept that the course was longer than I'd expected, and I couldn't hold the pace. Kevin passed me back, half a block later, and we went across the pedestrian bridge like that. I kicked, hard, better than I've kicked in any race this year, but I had too much distance to make up and Kevin had picked up the pace as well, and I couldn't quite catch him at the finish. He came through in 29:30 for 5th place, I in 29:31 for 6th. Tim slid in 9 seconds later, in 29:40, with John Hylas a bit after that in 29:53. Derek Dean hit 30:17, Michael Leonard 30:40, David Elliott 30:49, Sergei Kiselev, a new High Nooner, 32:11 (losing by one place and 17 seconds to one of the Rossiters - I'd guess Truck - running as the Brothers Karamazov), and Dan Peck in 32:34 (who's not quite up to his 1996 times, when he won the 5 mile). Then the local vets streamed in after Truck, Herb Engman, John Saylor, Bob Huddle, Terry Habecker, Caleb Rossiter (the other Brother Karamazov), and Bob Dattola.
The men's winning time was Tyson Sacco's 26:35, way off the course record from the days of Dan Predmore and Pete Pfitzinger, and Dana Carr, Earl, and Casey filled in the rest of the places ahead of Kevin and me. For the women, Althea Rebman won in 32:49, with Rebecca Harman right after her in 32:53.
Another high point - Leone Timing did a great job with the results, posting interim standings and times throughout the races, so I was able to see my time and place within 5 minutes of finishing. Much nicer than at Pud's Run, where I never saw any results at all, and the awards ceremony seemingly must have taken place hours after the race finished.
Everyone agreed that the weather didn't help the times, between the incredible humidity, the wet roads, and our soggy flats. And although it certainly didn't help attendance, it was still a little sad that so many fewer people came to the long-standing 5 & 10 than Pud's Run.
I suspect it has to do with running no longer being the craze it was in the 1980s, when there would be hundreds more runners, and times like mine would barely have placed me in the top 50 runners, much less in 6th. The timing might also play a part - local scholastic runners are less likely to run a road race after their seasons start.
And of course, there aren't huge cash awards to attract the hotshots from all around - though I thought the handmade ceramic bottles for the first overall and masters finishers were great, as were the piggy banks for the youngest finishers. Finally, I suspect 5 miles is just enough farther than 3.1 that people are finding it too far to race these days. 5 miles is certainly pushing it for how far I'm comfortable racing on my current training.
On the positive side, hanging around before and after the race felt extremely comfortable, with all the familiar faces. The number of runners may be down and the speed at which we're running may be up (okay, it IS up, as was made clear by the historical results from 5 & 10s of past years), but the running community remains friendly and accommodating, and that's what's most important.
-- Adam Engst
[Editors' note: only in Ithaca is there always such a need for "footnotes" (pun intended, sorry) and here's ours, courtesy of Truck Rossiter.]
Yes, the Family K were there... but it was my son Dmitri Fyodorovitch (a.k.a Caleb "The Spider") who actually was in some kind of shape (as opposed to the Triennial when I was by far in the better condition), and finished sub-32. I was the old buffoon (Fyodor Pavlovitch) who struggled in at 34:30 … yes, our times are going up! But for the correct attitude just imitate Don Farley and Chuck Collins.
About Thailand -- I had the pleasure of being 10 days in Bangkok about a month ago, and can report that it prepared me well for the race.
I suspect the course was a little long. The distance from Cayuga to Tioga and back (the side loop) sure seems further than the distance from the turn into IHS to the tennis courts where we used to start.
I will always be loyal to the 5&10, as it was my first race in 1978. Great fun looking over the old results! Since that was 10 miles in 80 minutes, I think I am still qualitatively better with 34:30 for 5 miles... so both feet still firmly out of the grave.
--- D. Truck Rossiter
(a.k.a. Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov)
| Prev Article | Front Page | Next Article |