Scottsdale, Arizona
This was a nice little race. Both Christian and I liked the
course and the location. DC Ranch is a nice place. I had one goal and one goal
only for this race: Cross the finish line before Christian. I woke up and ate
more than my usual carbs in an effort to insure I had good energy. When the gun
went off, I immediately moved ahead of Christian and attempted to stay there. I
wanted to show him how things were going to go down in this race. He quickly pulled
up beside me. Christian is almost as tall as I am and weights 125 lbs. I
currently weight 245 lbs. I am hauling 120 lbs. more than him. He hauls one
Christian and I am hauling 2 Christians. This means I have to work a lot harder
than he does. We hit a steady incline and I know he does not do well on climbs
so I pushed which started me red-lining a bit. I was trying to stay just under
my threshold. No one will ever know the depths of pain I must endure to beat
that kid. I do not think most people appreciate how much a 5k can hurt. Sure it is only 3.1 miles, but run that entire
distance as fast as you can and you will find pain. Of course you are not
sprinting all out, but you have to run hard and continue to do it for what gets
to seem like a very long time. I have to run it in a zone that starts to slowly
put me into oxygen deprivation. The oxygen debt grows as does the pain. The pain starts to become greater and greater
and I have to constantly force the body not to drop off in intensity as the
body naturally starts to ease up in response to the bad things that begin to
happen as oxygen gets scarcer and scarcer in the cells. You must stay very
vigilant forcing the intensity further and further as the body rebels. Your
body begins to hurt on a cellular level. Easing up a little becomes so tempting.
I have to fight it with every gram of my being. I do things like envision
Christian right on my heals. I have to tell myself that all the pain I have
already endured and suffered will be for nothing if I don’t continue to endure even
more. Don’t waste the pain you have already endured, I tell myself, by giving
in to the pain now. As the oxygen debt reaches greater and greater levels, the
body begins to divert blood and oxygen away from non-essential areas. This
creates pain and difficulty thinking as one of those areas becomes your brain.
Sometimes you begin to fear you might just totally collapse.
I stayed ahead of Christian until we reached the top of the
incline. At the top of the incline there was a turn around and I know would get
a chance to see how much distance I had put between me and Christian. At the
turn around I was disappointed to see that I had only put 20 yards between us.
I had already paid a costly price climbing the hill at such intensity. I looked
at my watch and I was just over an eight minute mile. This was good time for me
considering my running shape and the fact that we were running uphill. I
worried that it may have been too fast and cost me too much. I still had two
miles to go and I was already hurting more than I wanted to at this point.
The last 5k race we did Christian was about 20 yards behind me a
mile into the race and we also had a turn-around where he was approximately 20
yards behind me. In that race he quickly closed the gap, passed me and there
was nothing I could do to answer. I knew that Christian would have a
psychological boost seeing the race playing out exactly the way it had last
time we raced this distance.
Seeing Christian only 20 yards behind me meant two things: 1) I
was going to have to concede this race and vow to lose weight before I could
give him a run for his money, or 2) I was going to have to suffer some
incredible pain to stay ahead of him. I chose the latter. We hit a downhill
portion. Sometimes Christian fails to use the downhill portions of races to his
advantage. Christian like many runners, see a downhill stretch as an
opportunity to recover a bit, or just a welcome the release from the pain
climbing induces. They keep their normal pace and suddenly it feels easier. Psychologically
they feel good about their running because they are maintaining their pace.
Just as on the bike, I use gravity to my advantage. On the bike I work
incredibly hard during downhill portions. In a 5k I do the same on downhill
portions. I maintain the intensity and the pain. I seek to make sure the
downhill does not feel any better than the hill I just climbed. This translates
to increased speed. Because I am so heavy this only works for me on slight down
hills, anything steep and I can’t run it hard without risking injury. This was
downhill but not steep and I worked it hard. Christian would later tell me that
this is where I got away from him and he got discouraged. I never look back so
I had no idea that I had put some more serious space between us. After a mile
of some slight downhill and a couple of flat spots we hit the third mile. I had
expected and mentally prepared for a downhill finish. This was a common thought
among some of the others runners I spoke to after the race. We were not prepared
for the challenges the last mile held.
When we left the start area we climbed for the first mile, so
somehow I was expecting the last mile to mirror the first in the other
direction. After all, what goes up must come down, Right? Apparently we had
lost all our elevation in the second mile, because the third mile was a series
of short but steeper inclines. Now these were not killer hills, but I had been
running in oxygen deprivation for over two miles and even small hills can
destroy a cardiovascular system when it is already been pushed to its limits.
Oh those hills hurt. I took them with a concentrated effort not to slow my
pace. I never run with a heart rate monitor for a good reason. I would look
down at moments like these and see my heart exploding and back off for fear of
having a heart attack. With no heart rate monitor to warn you, there are no
limits.
I pushed myself into a place no one wants to be. I was fearful
that Christian had been conservative and waiting for the last mile to hit the
gas. His air light frame could climb these hills much easier than me if he was
willing to hurt a little. I also knew that the last 400 yards was a significant
downhill run to the finish where Christian could defiantly out sprint me. I had
to leave him behind with no hope of closing the gap on these hills. Excruciating
pain on a cellular level engulfed my body. Although it was a cool morning and I
had only been running for 20 minutes or so, sweat was flying off my elbows as I
swung my arms to the rhythm of my legs. Ascending those hill I felt like I was
in danger of passing out. The lengths a father must go in order to save face.
I managed to cross the finish line 14 seconds ahead of
Christian. I know he was chasing me hard because he collapsed on the ground
right after he crossed the finish line. I ended up with an 8:03 per mile
average which isn’t too bad considering my weight, my fitness and the hills. It
took me a full 10 minutes to recover. I was deeply anaerobic by the end of that
race.
Christian never pushes himself harder than when he is racing me
and visa versa. I am not sure if it a healthy father son relationship or not,
but in these races neither of us wants to lose to the other. Our competitive
relationship does to bring out the fastest times in us both. Christian placed 1st
in his age category of 13-19. I fell short of a medal with 4th in my age
category. There were only 11 people that crossed the finish line in front of me
in this race and half of them were in my age category. Two of them got pulled
out of my age category because they were in the top three over-all. I hate my
age category. At least next year I get to move up to 45-50. I will be a young
guy in and old category as opposed to an old guy in a young category that just
happens to be consistently the most competitive age category out there.
