Trip Report - 2015 Gate River Run / USA 15K National Championships

In college one of my goals was to qualify for a national championship, and unfortunately it never panned out. Then 2 years ago I was fortunate enough to get let into the USA Half-Marathon championships in Duluth, Minnesota by the hosting race (Grandma's Marathon) despite being 34 seconds outside of the qualifying standard, and it was definitely an eye-opening experience to toe the line with Olympians and runners who have represented the USA in international competition. Sometimes when you face a level of competition so out of your league, some people get discouraged and eventually move on to different pursuits. For me, I realized that while I will never be in that front pack competing for the win or a spot to represent team USA, I wanted to keep on working hard so I can be as competitive and place as high as I can in races like that in the future. I dropped out of the race that day when my IT Band flared up early on and while I knew well in advance that it was probably going to happen, it was disappointing nonetheless.

Last year I got to run in my 2nd national championship race, the Gate River Run, the 15K championships. I had another injury scare a few weeks before but after weekly massages for the month leading up to the race I was able to toe the line and come away with a top 50 finish. Not great, but at least respectable by my standards. When race registration opened, I was a little surprised to receive an invitation to return to the race from the elite athlete coordinator Richard Fannin. Maybe I was underselling myself a little bit, but I felt that typically the top 20-30 runners in this race are the true elites (Olympic Trials qualifier caliber or faster) and the rest of us were at best "sub-elites". If you ask any runners who are regulars on the USA road racing circuit they will tell you that Richard is one of the top elite athlete coordinators around, and he cares about putting together a deep, competitive field and not just the top few runners in the race. I was perfectly happy paying my own way for a chance to compete in a field like this, but a few weeks before the race he messaged me to let me know that I will be getting a room from the race, saving me a couple of hundred bucks!

On Thursday before the race I got in a quick shakeout run and then Maureen drove me to the airport. The race had arranged a shuttle to pick up the elite runners for the race from the airport and take us to the hotel. I shared a shuttle with Andrew Epperson, Kiya Dandena, Allison Morgan, and Heidi Greenwood, immediately making me the only person in the group that has not qualified for the trials yet. I chatted with Andrew for a bit since it turned out he lives about 2 hours away from me and is currently working on his grad degree while assistant coaching at Colorado School of Mines.

When we got to the hotel it turned out our rooms weren't ready yet, so Kiya and I walked to a Panera to grab a quick bite to eat and when we got back to the hotel our rooms were ready. I quickly changed so Kiya/Andrew/I can head out for  a shakeout run. On my way out of the room my roommate for the weekend, Johnny Crain, the 2014 D3 10,000 meter national champion and also a Olympic trials qualifier came in and we quickly introduced ourselves before I ran out. After the shakeout run we all went back to our own rooms to shower/change and then the same crew + John met up at an Italian place Andrew had found. We made quick work of the bread they brought out, as well as the refills. Everyone got the lasagna besides me, I went with the chicken and eggplant parmisian combo. Someone at the table next to us was apparently on vacation and didn't have a fridge in their hotel room so they gave us a plate of their leftover spaghetti meatballs which were quickly devoured as well.I was definitely glad not to be the pig of the group sticking like a sore thumb as is the case most of the time when I go out to eat with other people.

The next morning the four of us went for another shakeout run followed by breakfast at a nearby diner/cafe type place. Two other runners Johnny met the day before joined us, Brandon York and Sam Mueller. At least now I am not the only guy who hasn't qualified for the trials anymore, but Sam (who missed it with a 66-low in Houston) has also run sub-30 on the track so he's still significantly faster than me. Before we headed out to breakfast, I ran into Ryan Vail and took the chance to quickly say hi and have a short conversation. For those you who don't know the back story, I won his 2014 London marathon singlet in a prediction contest he had last year. Like all the other fast guys he was very down to earth and approachable, and even gave me some advice/warning on being conservative tomorrow given the suboptimal weather forecast.

After breakfast we walked back to the elite athlete hospitality suite, grabbed some more water and snacks and watched a course tour video before heading back to our rooms. In the afternoon we went to "The Sanctuary", an event organized by the race where we go and visit a place for underprivileged kids in the Jacksonville area and we introduced ourselves and did relay races with the kids. Afterwards we went to the technical meeting / elite athlete dinner where Todd Williams was the guest speaker this year. Following this dinner I met up with my sister-in-law, her boyfriend (my brother-in-law passed away a few years ago), my nephews and the boyfriend's son for another dinner at a nearby restaurant on the river. I recalled a discussion Johnny and I had during lunch about spicy foods prerace and ordered the Jambalaya, which may or may not be a mistake.


On race day I woke up nice and early per usual, but Johnny appeared to still be asleep so I tried to be as quiet as possible til he woke up. Since we were staying at the other side of the bridge from the Hyatt where the elite hospitality suite was, we were just going to jog/walk over but Richard picked us up on his way! Talk about going all out for his runners. I grabbed a couple of bowls of the baked oatmeal and a couple of cups of coffee, then we all got on the bus and headed to the staging area. We hung out for about half an hour or so before I decided to head out to warmup. In a similar setup to last year, they blocked off a road loop that's around 0.6-0.7 miles for us to warm up on, and this year instead of 5 porta potties reserved for elite athletes we got some really nice RV-style bathrooms (hard to describe, but basically these bathrooms are as nice as ones you would see in most 4 star hotels). I warmed up for about 3 miles, then headed back to the staging area to change into my race gear so we can be led out to the start line with the rest of the elites. On the way I met/chatted with Tommy Gruenewald. When we got up to the start I did some more easy jogging and a few easy strides, then lined up with everyone else. After the national anthem and a short wait we were off.

Due to the extremely humid conditions the early pace was very very conservative, and given the double whammy of my poor history of racing in humid weather and being sick recently I was even more conservative. After the first quarter mile it was pretty much everyone that was in the elite field and a few jokers in one giant pack and I was 2-3 steps behind them. By the first mile the pretenders had fallen off and it was still one giant pack of about 65-75 guys and I was the lone chaser 10 seconds back. I basically ran in no man's land for the next 4-5 miles and tried to stay positive and not think about how I was running 15s/mi slower than my goal pace coming into the race. Finally around mile 5 I started picking off some stragglers and by the time we hit the beginning of the climb up Hart bridge I was making my way slowly up the field. Unlike last year where I didn't get passed in the second half of the race, this year there was a "downhill mile" competition for the fastest last mile of the race and one of the guys decided to go after the $1000 award after he fell back from the lead pack around 2-3 miles in so I had the rare experience of watching someone put 43 seconds on me in about 3/4th of a mile. After the race it seemed like pretty much everyone other than the top 3-4 guys and a handful of others guys out of the 70-80 of us in the men's elite field felt like we had good races. I had a short conversation with Tommy about how weather like this tends to hurt bigger runners like us, misery loves company I guess.

After we got back to the staging area I went out for a cooldown with Eric Loeffler (who sat next to / with our small group in the staging area). Eric is one of the few guys in the entire field who is older than me, but chatting with him made me even more optimistic about my chances of improving over the next few years since he's about 5-6 years older than me but said most of his PRs have come in the last 3-4 years. After the cooldown I went into this area where they had a bunch of free food for us and proceeded to devour about 3-4 hot dogs, some pastries, and a few bottles of gatorade over the next half hour or so. I was about to head back to the hotel to shower/pack and head to the airport but Johnny saved the day (he's also leaving the afternoon of the race) and said we should check with Richard first if there's a shuttle to take us to the airport, and there is! So I ended up saving a nice chunk of change on a taxi. There was a girl sharing the shuttle with us that was also on Johnny's flight so the three of us ended up getting lunch before our flight, then we parted ways and one of the coolest 48 hours a running nerd could experience (minus about 50 minutes of subpar/forgettable "racing") came to an end.

A few quick notes on the weekend:
1. Elites are normal people too.While I spent a lot of my time talking running with other runners during my 48 hours or so in Jacksonville, we also spent a decent amount of time talking about "normal" non-running stuff. John and I talked basketball/football a bit while killing time and Andrew  gave us a pretty interesting description of what he would like to do after he finishes his graduate degree in mechanical engineering. (making equipment/gear for special olympics athletes)

2. In general, people who choose to run after college are incredibly supportive of other runners' dreams and goals. While it was obvious that I wasn't on the same level as most of the company I was keeping, there was nothing but support and nods when I was asked about my goals going forward and I mentioned chasing the Olympic Marathon trials standard. Obviously when you have a dream you have to believe in it yourself, but having others who have made the journey before you telling you that you are on track is a huge confidence boost.

3. When things aren't going well in a race, never throw in the towel. I was feeling absolutely awful about 2-3 miles into the race, but I kept plugging away and started pulling in some runners. While my time was very subpar by my standards (I ran about 4s/mi faster than my marathon pace for crying out loud) the level of competition I finished with/near made me feel a little bit better. Finishing with/near 66min HM / 30:30-31:00 10K guys even when they're probably not having great days still puts the race in perspective somewhat. I also finished about 2min behind a ton of 63-64min HM guys as well.

4. Consistency in training is key. I have started to learn this lesson myself, but for some reason in our sport the point usually comes through even more when it comes from a much faster runner. John told me he basically had a 4-5 months stretch of 110+ mpw before he ran 63:21 in Houston. So you don't need to do insane mileage, but finding a "sweet spot" where you can get in quality workouts while staying healthy and letting your fitness build is huge. My focus going forward now is to not get sick again (easier said than done) and not push the envelope too much with my training mileage but just staying consistent and do the small things it takes to stay healthy and I believe I'll be able to make another fitness jump or two in the next few months.

5. It seems like a lot more 22-24 year olds are sticking with the sport and making a go at it. It was pretty cool to watch a former D3 guy like John run a fearless race and mix it up with the likes of Bobby Mack late in the race after he blew by Luke Puskedra and Shadrack Kipchirchir. While I don't have illusions of grandeur of ever racing at that level, I do hope I took away some of that competitiveness to mix it up with guys that I would normally think are a couple of tiers above me on paper.