In early April I was starting to gather some momentum in my training after being sick a few weeks earlier right before the Phoenix half marathon. In fact, about 10 days after the Shamrock Shuffle 8K I ran my best 5-mile tempo workout that indicated I might be in low-mid 66 half marathon shape. With my goal race still about 10 weeks away, I thought I would try to find some races in May to back off my training a little bit and get in a couple of hard efforts before ramping up my training again for the last month or so. Coincidentally, I saw that the 25km national championships was the weekend right in between the Country Music half and Bolder Boulder so the timing of the race worked out well. After a few email exchanges with the elite athlete coordinator I was signed up and entered into the national championship field!
I left Colorado Springs bright and early (actually it was storming and still dark on my way to the airport) after a 4 mile shakeout run on the treadmill. I got into Grand Rapids after a couple of short flights, got my rental car, and headed to the hotel. After navigating through the crazy downtown traffic I finally found the hotel's parking lot, picked up my race stuff at the elite athlete suite, and checked in. I got a quick look at the entry list and realized I was probably the 16th or 17th fastest American on paper, and top 15 Americans qualify for the USARC national championship 12K at the end of the year, so I made a mental note that I "just have to beat 2 guys". I should probably clarify that even though this was a national
championship race, the host race has a separate smaller open prize purse
for Americans as well as non-Americans so there were some Africans in the race.
I then went out for another 2 mile shakeout run to loosen up a bit since I felt a little tight from sitting for most of the past few hours. (either on the plane or driving). Finally, I met up with Andrew Epperson and we hit the spaghetti dinner. I was so busy traveling and getting things done the past few hours that I had apparently forgotten to feed myself sufficiently, since I went back for 2nds and then 3rds, I know I was eating a lot when other runners at our table started commenting on how much I was eating.
On the way back to our hotel I picked up Nick's packet for him to save him a trip, since he was getting in pretty late. I hung out and watched the Cavs/Bulls playoff game until Nick got there, then we just chatted for a bit after he got in and fell asleep before it got too late since we have a pretty important race the next day. There's something to be said about that hotel, because I think that was the best sleep I have gotten the night before a major race in a long time.
Around 5:30 or so we woke up and hit the hospitality room for some oatmeal and coffee. Then about 45 minutes before the race we headed out for a 3 mile warmup. It was super humid and also raining hard, but the great things about our setup was that our hotel was basically around the corner from the start line so we 1) didn't have to wait in line at the porta potty 2) didn't have to wait out in the rain for too long before the race 3) got to change out of our wet clothing after warming up into our race kits. Finally, about 15 minutes or so before our race started we headed downstairs and jogged the 2 blocks or so to the start line. On the way over Nick thought he saw Emily, but I told him he probably just saw another girl who looked like her from the side since she lives on the other side of the country. Then as I was doing some last minute strides I saw her too, apparently she was in town with her boyfriend visiting his family, small world.
I knew for the 24-48 hours leading up to the race that the conditions weren't going to be optimal. It was in the low-mid 60s and extremely humid. It wasn't terrible, but based on my understanding of temperature/humidity impacts this was probably going to cost us about 3-5s/mi, which I confirmed with my buddy Scott Wietecha the day before. He also gave me some advice that I should have taken to heart more, which was to go out just a bit more conservative and err on the side of caution when adjusting my pace earlier on. More on that later.
As we lined up for the race, the national championship / elite field was small enough that we were all either on the line or in the 2nd row. I turned to my side as I usually do before the race and wished the runners next to me good luck and shook their hand. When I turned to my left I realized I was shaking hands with Abdi Abdirahman, which was pretty cool. I didn't have much time to reflect on the moment though as they started the race seconds later and we were off.
I think due to the suboptimal weather, the pace early on was very conservative. So much so that I was pretty much in the lead pack of about 20-25 runners half a mile in. I made a conscious decision to let the group go since the effort felt a little bit faster than half-marathon pace and we were racing a distance almost 2.5 miles longer. I still went through the mile in 5:02, but the first mile was net downhill so it really wasn't as fast as the time indicated. I was also already 3-5 seconds behind the lead pack at this point.
A couple of minutes later people started dropping off the lead pack. I passed 3 guys who were all wearing the same racing outfit, I think they were a local running club or something. I caught up to a guy wearing a Brooks racing kit around 2-3 miles, but it turned out he was running an even more conservative race than I was after he backed off of the lead pack around mile 2 since he kept up with me pretty easily and pulled away around mile 5 or 6 and would go on to finish close to 2 minutes ahead of me.
The rest of the race was fairly uneventful and felt like I was running a really long hard tempo for most of it. I passed an African wearing bib number 1 around 8 miles and then another American around 9-10 miles. With about 5 miles to go I caught sight of Tyler Andrews, which gave me some motivation since he's run sub-2:17 in his last marathon as well as set the world treadmill record 3 weeks earlier with a 63:38. I closed the gap down to about 7-8 seconds by mile 12 but then he must have realized someone was gaining on him and threw down a hard mile and gapped me again. Shortly after, I crossed the half-marathon timing mat in 67:56. I was a little bummed since I was hoping for at least an unofficial PR but missed by 12 seconds. Around this time I was all by myself and I figured I was done passing people, so I eased up slightly but still ran hard enough to protection my place in case I was in the top 15. Surprisingly, I passed another runner with about a mile to go, I surged when I caught up to him just in case he was in the American race too, but it turned out he was one of the foreigners. (these non-American runners in USA championship races is confusing sometimes!). Shortly after I crossed the line in 1:20:55, I met up with Andrew and we went for a quick cooldown in the parking garage right next to the elite athlete tent. His parents told us he was 12th and from our account of the race there may have only been 1 or 2 runners between us, so I was fairly sure I was top 15 (even counting any potential non-Americans) but wasn't sure until I got back to the room and checked results. I was 14th overall and 13th American!
Looking at the results of the race, I was extremely pumped with how I ran compared to the field. Every American who beat me has qualified for the Olympic Trials in the marathon, and the only exception (Zach Ripley, the Brooks runner who I caught around miles and then left me 2-3 miles later) was a 65:10ish guy and qualified for the trials in the steeplechase last time around. On the Jack Daniels vdot table my 80:55 was worth about a 67:15-67:20 half marathon, but given that the couple of runners ahead of me who ran the race last year as well ran about 45-75s (3-5s/mi) slower than they did the prior year i think this may make my run worth something in the mid-high 66s for a half marathon. Either way, extremely encouraging result with 6 weeks to go until the Garry Bjorklund half.
After we got back to the hotel and had a chance to shower and clean up a little we met up with Andrew and his parents for lunch at TGI Friday's. Of course, as soon as they saw a bunch of hungry runners walk in and inquire about their all-you-can-eat appetizer special they just "happened to have stopped that promo recently". No matter, I still had a plate of sampler appetizer as well as some burger and fries and enjoyed some good conversation with pleasant company. Then, since I had an early afternoon flight I hit the road shortly after and was back home a few hours later. I will definitely be back to the race in the future.
Race data:
1 - 5:02.07
2 - 5:06.95
3 - 5:06.89
4 - 5:10.57
5 - 5:07.05
6 - 5:08.31 (30:41.84, so probably another sub-32 10K split)
7 - 5:16.58
8 - 5:10.90
9 - 5:14.13
10 - 5:14.81 (51:38.26, missing my unofficial PR of 51:35 from the Tucson half)
11 - 5:12.44
12 - 5:07.65
13 - 5:23.13 (kinda annoyed with this, I think this mile might have been long but I was going by the race mile makers and didn't feel like I slowed down much here)
14 - 5:23.42
15 - 5:19.87
15-15.5x - 2:49.68 (about 5:20-5:25 pace, but deceptive since the last 400-600 meters is just a long gradual climb).
Final analysis: not great that I gradually slowed down as the race went, but I didn't really die that badly until 2-3 miles to go and even then it was partially due to my conscious effort to not kill myself and possibly end up with a hamstring cramp and DNF the race. I still felt like if I took Scott's prerace advice more to heart and went out in maybe the 5:05-5:10 range I could have run a bit faster at the end. Maybe even low-mid 1:20s. The only person in that time range was Tyler though, and I felt like he probably just ran hard enough to hold me off since he was a minute behind Andrew, so even if I ran in the low-mid 1:20s he still would have run hard enough to beat me, who knows. Either way, a solid step in the right direction and back to putting in a few more weeks of quality training.
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