Race Report: 2012 Stratford YMCA Sweetheart Run

Sally and I ran our first race of the season on Saturday, the Stratford YMCA Sweetheart Run.  The race is a four-miler over rolling terrain with a tough hill at the third mile marker where the grade briefly goes all the way up to fourteen percent.  Matters were complicated slightly on Saturday by lingering snow flurries.  The temperature was in the mid-thirties, but persistent flakes kept all but the more-serious runners away.

Background: Fitting this Race into the Season

I don’t think of myself as a runner.  I think of myself as a triathlete who runs.  My background is swimming—I swam all four years at the U.S. Military Academy—but I learned to run from my father and kept running as a cadet and junior Army officer.  This creates an issue, however, in that I can usually come out of the water with the elite athletes in any given triathlon, only to see myself slip slowly back during the bike and then fall well back during the run.  So while I like running, the fact is that it is by and away my weakest discipline.  I mean, I don’t think of myself as a “bad” runner or anything.  But in the same way that I don’t expect that someone who didn’t swim in high school or college to be able to beat me in a swimming race, I likewise don’t expect for me myself to be able to beat former high school and college cross-country folk in their best discipline, either.

With all of that said, my wife Sally is the actual runner in our family, and under her influence, I’ve decided to make 2012 my Year of Running.  Which is only fair.  Sally comes by her swimming the hard way—I spent all last season teaching her—but after a good six or eight months of continuous work, she ran not one but two triathlons last season, the second of which had a tough open-water half-mile in two-foot swells.  But she came through it like a champ, and well, now it’s my turn.  After triathlon season ended, we signed up for and ran the Hartford Half-Marathon, and since then, I’ve made an effort to stay out of the pool and keep my focus on riding, and yes, running.

I mention all of this in an effort to put Saturday’s race in context.  It was our first race of the season, but we’ve both been working.  For me, I’ve put in about a month of reasonably solid base training, split evenly between cycling and running, but I’ve not yet worked up to any kind of really serious mileage or anything.  Thus Saturday’s race was an early season test of my newly developed running fitness, but neither Sally nor I rested at all for it, and we weren’t expecting to set the course on fire or anything.  But we like this race, and we’re familiar with the course, and I think we were both excited for it.  It’s also a good tune-up race for theWestport Minuteman 10K and the Brian’s Beachside Boogie duathlon, races that are on both of our calendars this season.

Pre-Race

Last week was a busy week.  We both had a lot going on at work, and the kids had a lot going on, too.  I rode the bike into the office Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, skipped Thursday but went for a lunchtime run, and then took Friday completely off.  Sally ran twice last week as well, but offhand I don’t remember which days or what else she did.  Friday night our girls had a Valentine’s Day Girl Scout thing after an early dinner, so that all in all, we didn’t wind up sitting down together until about nine pm Friday night.  It had been a busy week, but we watched Fringe and then spent some time together, and we still managed to get to bed pretty early.

We both woke up about seven the next morning.  I had a cup of coffee, a banana, and a small bowl of cereal.  Sally had some coffee and a bagel with peanut butter.  Then we stressed a little about whether or not her mother was going to show up to watch the kids with the snow outside.  But Barb surprised us by arriving on time and without an drama whatsoever.  After that, we both started stretching and doing yoga, and Sally said, “You know, I’m actually nervous.”

I smiled.  “This is why you should have an appreciation for Eli Manning.  You’re nervous now over a race that’s not even important.  Imagine what it’s like to play in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl.”

Shortly after that, we got in the car and drove up to Boothe Hill Memorial Park, the site of the race.  As I said, the temperature was fairly warm considering that it’s February in Connecticut, but we had persistent snow flurries.  That kept most of the more casual runners at home, meaning that we had little trouble parking, got through race check-in quickly, and were ready to start warming up in no time at all.  At that point, Sally and I went our separate ways.  I put on a light riding jacket, changed out the lenses in my sunglasses, going from smoked to clear, and warmed up.  Since the race is so short, I wanted to give myself plenty of time.  I ended up running about a mile easy and then doing a couple of short pick-ups.  Then I settled down and did some more light stretching with Sally. 

I felt pretty good.  Not fresh or rested, but ready.  Sally, meanwhile, was all smiles and kisses.  Well, what do you want?  It was a Valentine’s Day run.

The Race

We edged up to the start line with everybody else, working our way forward to a ridiculous extent.  There were only a hundred fifty-seven runners entered, but we still pushed up, ending just two rows back from the start line.  We kind of laughed about that, but in the past we’ve been slowed down at the start of races by folks in front of us, and Sally had said she didn’t want that this time.  So we pushed forward, and to be honest, I didn’t really think very much of it.

But then we started, and folks just took off!  Honestly, I was shocked at how fast the leading edge of runners started out.  I mean, I expect the elites to be faster than me, but this was way beyond that.  It seemed like most everyone in the race started at a dead sprint, and this in a race with a very tough climb at the end.  Some folks, I had a feeling, hadn’t previewed the course.

In any event, with the way things were going, Sally and I each had a choice.  If you think of your total aerobic fitness as a matchbook with a finite number of matches, then the decision was this: “Do I burn a match now and keep up, or do I save my matches for later in the race?”  As we came around the first turn and started down the first hill, I decided to try to compromise.  I tried to run fast but loose, letting my turnover increase so that I pretty much flew down the hill.  Then we bottomed out, and I thought, the Hell with it.  If I don’t work the front half of this race, I won’t get a real test of my fitness.  So we came to the first climb, and I lit a match, powering up the hill and reeling in a goodly number of the early rabbits.  We turned left off that climb and came to a flat, and I settled back into a fast-but-loose pace, letting myself breathe and feeling pretty good.  I passed the first mile marker at 7:15, and to be honest, that was a lot faster than I’d thought I was gonna run. 

A bunch of the rabbits that I’d passed on that first climb passed me back on the flat, but I just kept breathing, knowing that there was more climbing to come.  We came to the second climb, and I again powered up, not burning energy quite so freely but still working it and reeling folks in.  Around me, I could see that some of the early rabbits were getting tired, but a lot still seemed in good shape, and I started wondering just how fast the day’s field was going to be.  On Hilltop Road, I again let myself breath, taking it fast-but-loose, and when we came to the second mile marker, I was pleased to see that I’d held the pace.  I was at 14:35 at mile two.  But the folks around me looked good, too.

Of course, now came the hard part.  And to make matters worse, now I was getting tired.  I couldn’t quite fly down the descent on Nemergut the way I’d have liked—it’s very steep—but I kept it going, and when we turned left to head on Cutspring to head towards that final climb, I couldn’t help wondering how I was going to take that last hill given how hard I’d already pushed it.  Around me, folks were visibly tiring and dropping away.  I got to the third mile marker at 22:10, having fallen off the pace slightly (from roughly 7:15/mile to around 7:35/mile), and then it was time to climb.  I’d like to say that I powered up the hill again, but in reality, it was tough.  Instead I just leaned into it and tried to keep turning my feet over and keep breathing.  I could feel my pace slowing, but there wasn’t a lot I could do.  That first section is very, very steep, and after that, it was hard to care about how fast I was running.  This seemed a common reaction.  I breathed and tried to hold my form together, but I knew I’d fallen off the pace, and I likewise knew there wasn’t a lot I could do about it.

The Sweetheart Race Run Course

Eventually, I made that last turn towards Boothe Hill Park.  I tried to pick it to hold off the few folks whom I’d passed on that last climb, but I could see a group ahead of me that I knew I wasn’t going to be able to catch.  I saw the finish line and gave it what I had left, crossing at 31:19 for a total average pace of 7:50/mile.  My math tells me that that last mile was over nine minutes, but I think it’s more like the first half of that last mile was almost walking pace, and after that, I was lucky just to finish as best I could.

2012 Stratford YMCA Sweetheart Run:

4-miles over rolling hills in 31:19.  6/18 Age Group.  36/157 Overall.

What can I say about that?  I’m happy with how I placed, but I’d like to have gone under thirty minutes total, though to be fair, I’m not sure how realistic that hope was considering how hard that last climb was.  Sally, meanwhile, finished just over two minutes behind me, coming in first in her age group and fifty-ninth overall.

Sally Head’s Sweetheart Run:

33:52.  1/19 Age Group.  59/157 Overall.

To say the least, Sally was ecstatic to have won her age group.  She earned her first ever athletic trophy, and I couldn’t be more proud of her.

Conclusion: Looking Ahead

We were all smiles after the race.

So there you have it.  Our first race is done, and we were both pretty pleased with how we ran.  Now we’ve got the rest of the season in front of us, and while I’m not exactly sure what we’re doing next, we’re certainly going to be racing.  Brian’s Beachside Boogie is in late April, and then the Westport 10K is in either later April or early May.  After that, there’s the Ten-Penny Shamrock Duathlon, but that’s in late May, and right now late May seems a long way off.  What I care about right now is that the new season has started, and that we’ve started it off right.