I just have to say that I really hate the Washington Park 5K course. It is a highly technical, hilly and incredibly frustrating course to try to have a good race on. You start the race on a very slight uphill which is followed by a HUGE downhill, a sharp turn and a nice assent to the Carillon. You get a nice downhill after that and then it is flat until the mile mark but you have to be careful to run your tangents to that point. After the mile you make a sharp right turn and contend with a few twists and turns and a few rollers to the two mile mark where you run down the huge hill AGAIN and up Carillon Hill, down the other side and then you make a sharp right up a 300-400 meter hill past the clubhouse followed by another right turn to head more-or-less straight to the finish line that is at the top of a nice roller.
I hit the mile mark in 5:58 and then ran the last 2.1 in 14:14 for a total time of 20:12.40. I had enough left the last straight to kick my way back into 5th place and puked promptly after crossing the finish line and again about thirty seconds later. Lucky for me I only ate a banana, yogurt and a cup and a half of coffee a few hours before the race. Not much came up.
I felt pretty dead the whole race and I've been contending with a bit of a spring cold and some hay fever the last week. Not to make excuses at all. The truth of the matter is that I'm not a strong hill runner. I tend to do better on courses I can stride out on.
The positives from today are that I ran an 11 second best on the course and I ran 23 seconds faster than I did a month ago on the very same course.
I feel good about my chances of running under 41:00 at Passavant as it is a course that agrees with me. There are a few hills but they're spaced well apart and there are quite a few long straights for me to stride out on.
I wonder how Nate did at his 10K?
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Hi, I ran the West Chicago version. Do you know where results are posted? I found Hoffman Estates here: www.racetime.info but that was it.
A. Trendl
http://runnersdilemma.blogspot.com
That's a good question. I'm pretty sure my local Roadrunners club will post results but as for the West Chicago version, I'm not sure.
5:58 first mile!!! Whoah! Downhill or not, that's smoking. Congrats on dropping your time so much over such a short amount of time.
My race isn't until the morning. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm going to be happy with anything under 1:03.
I felt pretty good after that first mile but the downhill after the two mile mark and the following uphill took a lot out of me. The body just didn't want to go the last mile.
Good luck at your race!
So... I am trying to remember the last time I puked after a race. I often get dehydrated and get sick hours after an event, but right after finishing? I think when I as 10 or 11, I threw up after finishing the Polka Pace Race, but I'm not sure if I've done it since then.
I puke, or dry heave, after a race about once a year. Usually because I still have a pretty potent kick that sends all the lactic acid straight to my stomach.
I don't sprint. Ever.
Glancing at your race schedule just now... no Steamboat this year?
I sprint but I don't sprint all out very often.
No Steamboat this year. I am picking up some extra hours in CT that weekend and I want to run sub-19:00 at the Scholastic Challenge the next weekend as my training may take a hit when I start grad school in early July.
I've raced about every-other-weekend since early April and I think that continuing that trend into June could get me injured. I don't like being injured.
What's grad school going to entail?
Every Monday we'll meet online for virtual class time with webcams and headsets and I'm sure I'll have readings and projects/papers to write between class sessions. I'm expecting this program to be very stringent, because it is U of I, and to take up quite a bit of my time.
I have no background in education, except for a five day ASTD conference, so this is all new to me. I'm not expecting to breeze through this.
I'm actually freaking out pretty bad and wondering how much the next two years is going to suck, especially if we get pregnant and have another child before I'm done.
My brother got his masters through a similar sort of thing at UIS. I think it was a tough balance.
Ya know, I hate that course also. Any course that involves two loops is no fun.
I try not to puke.
A 5K course containing that many hills is like biting into a chocolate chip cookie and discovering that the chips aren't chocolate.
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