Race #157
5k #54
2019 Race #1
2019 5k #1
Greenville News Run Downtown 5k #7

I signed up for this race as my January race for the year. (I later found another race that I will run next week.) As such, since I have just started the build up to marathon #1 for the year, Salt Lake City, I have not trained for short distances and had no goal for this race other than to use it as a tempo run.

Since Mom and Ellis had other obligations that morning, I chose to run to the race start after discovering that my new residence connects to a route with sidewalks all the way downtown. Thus, I ran to a race for the first time in my running career.

I enjoyed the new route, although the hills definitely provided a challenge. Each time a hill presented itself I thought about Zermatt (the completely uphill marathon in Switzerland I plan to run in July). This hill has nothing on Zermatt so quit complaining and keep running. (That’s what I would tell myself.)

I arrived at the race start about 15 minutes sooner than I hoped, about 25 minutes before race start, thanks to the distance from home to the race being a little shorter than I expected. With the chilly, foggy conditions, waiting around for 25 minutes was less than ideal so I kept walking up and down Main Street until about 5 minutes before race start.

As I got close to the start, the fog became rain and we all thought we would have to run the race in the rain. Thankfully, this rain lasted only a minute or two. The rest of the storm waited until the afternoon to show up.

Right at 9am we took off.

I thought I had seeded myself close enough to the front, 10-20 feet back from the initial start line, to avoid the congestion. Yeah, no. Many people with much slower paces had lined up in the few few feet apparently. If I had wanted to chase a PR in this race, that fact would have frustrated me exceptionally. As it was, the congestion provided minor annoyance and a perfect first mile pace to create negative splits.

Most of the first mile heads down Main Street with a little bit of downhill but mostly uphill after we pass Falls Park on our left. When running on the portion of the street which leads up to Fluor Field, I thought about how defeating that uphill feels when it comes at the end of the race, like Spinx. Currently, the hill felt tough but doable. I kept up the steady pace, not looking at my Garmin at all. I did not look at my Garmin once during the race or even after the race except to save the run.

We finally made the turn off the hill (after living in Greenville all my life, I should really know the names of these streets but I do not recall them at all) and had level terrain to finish off mile 1.

Mile 1: 8:07

The middle mile brings hope to most runners of this race because we head back down the hill we just conquered, one block over. On the steepest of the downhill as I focused on holding steady and keeping my stride even rather than overstriding, people streamed past me. I did not let that discourage me, knowing that many of them would come right back to me on what I used to call the hill of death that forms most of the last mile.

I kept pushing the pace, focused on maintaining a comfortably hard pace.

Mile 2: 7:50

Mile 3 brings the “hill of death,” which no longer feels like a hill of death thanks to much increased hill work.

As I predicted, I passed back many, but not all, of the runners who sped past me on the prior downhill. I knew that I just needed to keep pressing to the top of that hill and the hard work would be over for the race, all over save for the final downhill that last much longer than you expect.

I kept pressing up that hill, unconcerned about overall pace. I don’t even remember what I told myself during that time. All I remember is that I kept pressing up that hill and made that turn.

When we hit the downhill, I put on a little more speed , not quite a sprint but nearly.

Mile 3: 7:43

When we got almost to the last turn, a hard left less than a tenth before the finish, I really started sprinting. I wanted to see how many people I could pass in that last short portion. I did not count, so I do not have a number to relate.

last .10 nubbin: 6:37 pace

I had a goal of sub 25 to make sure that I really made the race a tempo . With a 24:36 finish, I accomplished that goal and netted negative splits. I’ll take that. Maybe after Zermatt I’ll start focusing on short speed. We’ll see.

After a short walk back onto Main Street, I started jogging again and made my way back home, a nice way to get my long run in as well as squeeze in a race.