Race Schedule and Results 2010

Snowman79 — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:06:35 GMT

January 16th - Snowflake 10k, Flushing, MI - 41:33 PR - 6:42 pace

I get on the line, right up front. The gun fires and off we go. I tell myself, "No restraint, just start hauling and keep hauling". By about 200 meters into the race, I'm behind 10-15 people and thinking, Whoa! What the heck? I thought I'd be closer to the front. We get to the half mile and more and more people are passing me and I'm really wondering what's going on. I figure I'm in 20th by now, maybe farther back. I'm now a little irritated but know if I go any faster, I'll be dead by 3 miles. The one mile marker is in sight and as I see it I remember, the 5k runners started with us! OH DANG IT! I hit the one mile and cringe, my first mile is a 5:53. Well, I tossed my goal of a sub 40 out the window right there. I was almost 30 seconds too fast. I knew I couldn't maintain and I was going to fall apart.

The 2nd mile was cold! It was uphill and against the wind, a real killer for someone who just threw his goal time out. Now my new goal became to run a sub 41. There were two guys about 10 feet in front of me and they both said they were running the 10k so I decided to hook up with them.

The 3rd mile was back in a neighborhood, you did a loop back there and came back out. My 5k time was a 20:35, not even close to what I hoped for and I knew it was going to get worse. Suck it up boy-o and dig deep! After the 5k-ers broke off, I could only see 4 people in front of me, the two I was running with and 2 really far ahead. So we start the 2nd loop.

4th mile was the killer mile. We started going back into the wind and back uphill. I'm getting tired and my form is falling apart. The two guys I was running with were starting to seperate. One was almost 20 meters ahead now and the other guy was about 10 feet in front of me. I check behind me and there was a guy about 20 meters back and he had been slowly inching up on me. I tell myself to catch the guy in front of me and to be side by side with him by the 5 mile mark. I start inching up on him. We come around a corner and whoa! Ambulance and paramedics in the road! A 5k runner had gone down and they had them in the ambulance. Don't know what happened.....oh well, press on and hope they don't have to pick you up! Shortly after that I hear feet behind me. That guy had caught me already! Oh this isn't good! Now we are bunched up in three and are heading into the 5th mile and going back into the neighborhood. We are passing 5k walkers and slower 10k runners still on their first lap. There's a weave type turn coming and the guy I had been behind for some reason took it wide, the guy who had caught me and myself cut it short. This move let us pass him and we never saw him again. 10 seconds after that, the guy completed his pass on me. I tucked right in on him and basically drafted off him (even though there was no wind back there). He would make a path through the walkers and I would follow.

6th mile hits and now we are slowly speeding up. He could sense I was looking to pass. With about .15 left, he got a burst and started pulling from me. I'd say he pulled almost 15 feet away really quick. I saw my time and was already over 41 minutes so my new goal was to beat that guy! We come up to the school parking lot, the home stretch of about 100 meters. Go you silly cracker, run that guy down! I take off like a mad man, running lights out, just watching the guy get closer. At this pace, I'm going to catch him. We are weaving through the walkers, more like flying through them. I'm right on him now but off to his side so I can pass, two walkers between us. I get side by side with him with about 10 meters to go and he looks over and does a triple take at me. He never heard me coming. The last ten meters he goes like a maniac and pulls back ahead and beats me by about a step and a half! LOL So close!

We talk at the end and we're both laughing. He said he never knew I was coming up so fast. I said I knew that, that was my strategy, to sneak up on him and pass right at the finish. We get done talking and now I'm fighting the urge to puke after that sprint. I start stumbling back into the school for some water. I fight the urge to pass out twice. No water! Just apple cider....super! The results went up right away and I look at my age, 4th. Snap! No award for me. I came in 9th place overall, 3 guys were in my age, and 3 or 4 were in the 50 year age. I don't think anyone younger than me beat me. I PR'd by about 30 seconds. Fun race, I just made it harder than it should've been with a way too fast of first mile. Can we say Pulling a Snowman? LOL

January 30th - Snowman Half Marathon, Mt Pleasant, MI - 1:40:03 - 7:39 pace

Quite the unorganized start. We're standing on the sidewalk and I hear "Ok, go ahead". Thanx dude! So we take off at a pretty easy clip and I just stick with the lead pack (actually right behind it) and just let my legs warm up and see what these people are going to do. The pace car starts leading us and there are about 7 of us in a pack. The cold is making my legs really tight so I have no clue what pace we're running. We get to the one mile and I check my time, 7:50!!! A sharp sense of Cyndi's wanting to smack someone came into my head. I'm already 40 seconds off pace!!! I know its my fault but I get really irritated with the group I was with and come flying around them. I know I'm now going a bit quick but I'm irritated and need my legs to loosen up and a 7:50 isn't going to do that. I pull from the group quickly and a guy follows me and a young chick does as well. Mile 2, check my time, 15:00 and some change, I think it was a 15:20, can't remember. I know I'm still off pace and pick it up a little more. Us three are staying together well but I heard the guy with us at registration and knew he was running the 10k, didn't know what the chick was running. We get to the third mile and there's a water station and the turn around for the 10k. I took a sip of my GU water and now its me and the chick running. We've pulled from the rest of the runner's by about a quarter of a mile now. There's is ice everywhere and its getting kind of hilly. The chick and me are talking now and I find out she's a very good runner. She ran Chicago last year in a 3:08:00 and is getting ready for Boston. Yikes! I've got to make sure she doesn't go too fast for me! We come to an intersection and the girl laughs. Her parents are sitting in the car on the left. We follow the pace car and go left. A little ways down, I've got this itch in my head, I think we're going the wrong way! I say something to the Chicago chick and she said she thought so too. Now I hear runner's screaming waaaay behind us and see them going a different way. I run the pace car down and tell him I think he turned wrong. He says, yeah, I think so too! UGH!!!! We turn around and start running back. The pace car gets in front of us and we get back to the intersection and he keeps going straight. We get a little ways down and I'm telling the chick, did this idiot just take a wrong turn AGAIN?!?! The chick's parents come flying up in their car and tell the driver they are going the wrong way. You are freakin kidding me!!! This time, the chick, another runner, and myself jump in the back of the truck and he drives us back to the intersection. We jump out and can barely see the runner's anymore (who followed the map and not the pace car). The chick is pumped up and ready to try running them down. We figured they had at least 5 minutes on us now, maybe more. My legs hurt now. Each time we turned around, I'd take back off and make ground up and that little rest in the truck did more harm than good. So now we are no long running a race, we are playing chase. We hit mile 4 and 5. After checking my watch, I was at least 5 minutes off pace now. Chicago chick and me take off and I know I can't hold the pace she's running, I'll burn out. We run down a bunch of people and now we can see the "leaders" of the race waaay the heck up there, all three of them were wearing neon yellow. She starts pushing and I let her go. Now since she's gone, it's pretty quiet. I hear this weird noise that sounds like plastic clicking. It seems like its my bib but it isn't. Whatever, keep going. Mile 6 and its time for a drink but I can't get the nozzle up. I bite it and pull and rip the nozzle off the bottle. DANG IT!! All my bottles were froze solid and the nozzles were freezing into place. Now I'm running and trying to get the nozzle back on. Finally fixed and realize I have to do this the old fashion way, no fuel or water. Before mile 8 I run down one of the neons, now just two to go but they are way up there, one is over a minute ahead, the other is almost 3. I look and Chicago chick had already overtaken them. JIMINY CHRISTMAS she's fast! During mile 8, my eyes are really hurting. My contacts were freezing to my eyes and it hurt to blink. I couldn't see well in the distance, the two neon runners were double. We get to mile 9 and I'm really digging trying to speed up to overtake this next neon runner. I see that I'm slowly gaining but I notice that the farthest neon runner was trying to pace Chicago chick. That's really going to make them hard to catch. I just keep hauling trying to run down the closest neon who I now can see is a chick but is 20 - 30 seconds ahead of me. We get to mile 10 and the neon chick gets water at a station and walks through it. Here we go, time to get her! I speed up again! She notices me and is speeding up too, this is killing me! Now I notice we are catching up to the other neon and the Chicago chick with the speed we are going. Mile 11, this mile was me telling myself, you have to pass her now! Pass her now! If you can't, you won't catch the others! Pass her! At around 11.5 I pass the neon chick. She paces me for about 30 seconds and then I basically broke her will. She slowed and I left her. Now we are back in town and I see mile 12 and the neon. He's over a minute ahead of me. Not sure I can run him down. Mile 12 was the craziest mile I've ever run! My hips kill, my knees hurt, I can't see straight, and my legs give out every now and then. I just keep telling myself to catch him, he's stealing your spot, catch him! I make up alot of ground but he's still a ways up there. At around 12.75, I relent and know I won't catch him. Now my focus is just finishing because I feel like I'm going to black out. I get to the home stretch back on the sidewalk where we started and cars are honking for me and I'm trying to kick it in. My watch reads a 1:39:59 as I cross.

February 6th - Winterlaufe 8k, Frankenmuth, MI - 32:57 PR - 6:38 pace

We get on the line and I was about 2 or 3 rows back because there were some fast people there (which means I didn't have to worry about following a pace car LOL). They tell us we'll start when the cannon fires. They say, Ready.............Set..................waiting..........waiting..........BOOOOOOM! The cannon was 10 feet from us and felt like it shattered my left eardrum! Of course, alot of people screamed and it probably made some people wet themselves but off we go. It was an out and back course. Going out, the wind would be at our backs. It was very hilly and the first mile was the toughest. My legs felt exhausted and it felt like I was going way too fast. They only marked the course by 2k, 4k, 6k, and finish so I'm not smart enough to convert that so I just ran. There was a guy in front of me from Team Hanson who always kicks my butt. How I'm with him right now, I don't know. So I decide that he'll be my pacer bunny, keep him in my sites. I don't have splits, which sux but at the 2k, I started feeling better, legs loosened up. It was alot of up and down. We get out to almost the turn around and we turn onto a dirt road which is snow and ice, cross a bridge of snow and ice and then do a turn around which was crazy. It was just a cone! I came to a complete stop and turned around. Sheer pain hits and we turn around right into a 20-30mph wind. It felt like a midget was hanging off the back of my shirt! Team Hanson is still right in front of me. We get back out to the road and the wind is hitting from the left/front. The whole left side of my face went numb and I was running ****-eyed because of the wind pushing me. Up and down through the hills again but this time fighting this insane wind. Team Hanson seems awfully tired and I can hear him breathing. At the 6.5k, I decide to make my move and overtake him. I told him good job and he just moaned back, he looked gassed. I began chasing down another person but didn't have the juice to fight the wind in the homestretch. I finish with a 32:57 and I'm ok with my time, 20-30 seconds from my PR I'm thinking, with the hills and wind, not bad. (come to find out my old PR was a 33:23 so I actually PR'd and didn't know it till now). There was a guy puking at the end which was just dandy. It was a hard run but my legs feel great. I got an authentic German Cowbell for my award! Got to love the Germans!!!

February 13th - Sweetheart 5k, Flushing, MI - 19:23 - 6:15 pace

Lined up and had a pretty good take off. Got squeezed out a little on the first little turn and a couple of us bumped around but no big deal. I recognized a few of the guys and knew some were running the 10k. Thomas Preiss was there (in front of me of course) and that's never good news for me. He's a quick bugger! So we get settled and I'm holding 5th (I think) pretty well but a couple guys right on my heels. Come up to the first real turn and one of the guys comes around and steals position on me for the turn, he made a good move and forced me a little outside. Well played sir! So I tuck in behind him and try to get some blockage from the wind but not doing much good. The wind is probably hitting at a 10mph so it kind of sucks. We do a couple more turns and come up on the one mile. Moment of truth........5:52...Ahhhhh dang it dang it dang it! My mind starts whipping around thinking what to do........my decision is to just roll with it. Who knows, maybe I can hold a 6:00 flat. Just go, too late to do anything about it now, just run! I press on and around 1.5 we go into the horrible stretch of uphill against the wind. Another runner comes around me. I'm feeling half way decent but just can't seem to go, legs and hips are tight and the cold is messing with my breathing. I get to the two mile and my watch reads 12:11. Def slowed down but that's ok, now I just have to speed up and I'll hold my 6:05 pace I wanted. I think someone tapped my battery cause I started dying out quickly. I kept pacing a guy in front and doing well to stay behind him. I'm coming around the last turn and finally out of the wind with about .3 - .4 left (at this point I spit the gunk out of my mouth and it goes all over my shoulder LOL). I'm tired and my breathing is messed up and then I see someone on the sidewalk in a coat like my brothers. Sure enough, its him, he showed up to watch my run. He starts yelling at me "What the heck are you doing? Speed up! You got a quarter mile left!" I told him I'm at a 18:00 flat right now. He starts yelling at me "DUDE, if you want to get under 19:00, you better start running!" So I speed up. And slow back down. LOL I hear my brother way behind me yelling "Speed up ya dork!!!" I'm trying but I just feel tapped. Not that my legs were giving out, I just didn't have the energy to give my usual push. We hit the final stretch of .1 and I try to gain a place by catching the guy I had been pacing. Creeping on him but he starts to kick as well and that took care of that. Finish with a 19:24, not even close to my goal of 18:56.

I figured I was around 8th but some guys ran the 10k and some were running the team 5k so I knew I'd be up there. Well, the guy I was chasing came in first and I came in 2nd overall. He won with a 19:19, so I was pretty upset with myself that I blew an opportunity to PR AND take a first overall.

March 13th - Shillelagh 4 mile

March 27th - Flushing Half Marathon

April 10th - Martian Marathon

April 24th - Road Ends 5mile Trail

June 3rd - 5k Challenge

June 9th - Evening 5k

June 12th - Flirt with Dirt 10k Trail

June 17th - Fireman's 5k

June 23rd - Twilight 5k

June 24th - YMCA Re-Tread 5k

July 3rd - Volkslaufe 10k

July 31st - The Legend 10mile Trail

August 5th - The Great Pizza 5k

August 12th - Bauman's Charity 5k

August 28th - The Crim 10mile

September 5th - Virginia Beach Rock n Roll Half Marathon

September 12th - Tower Run 8k

September 18th - Apple Cider 5k

October 3rd - Lakefront Marathon

October 9th - U of M vs MSU Tailgate 5k

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Race Schedule and Results 2010