Tag Archives: races

Running, Sports

Race #53 – Take Your Kicks to Route 66 5K

St. Louis — like much of the midwest — has a thing about Route 66.  The Mother Road ran right through town, and just past where I live out here in the ‘burbs.

And with that has come some historical preservation, and some growth of the road.  The Route 66 State Park, for example,  memorializes both the route of Route 66, and the town of Times Beach and its ecological disaster.  And Manchester Road, where I’ve been running a lot lately, is on the route of the old road.

When I saw this virtual medal come up through Full Medal Runs, I knew I had to get it, and I knew where I’d have to run it — right alongside Route 66!  The city of Wildwood has built the multi-use Wildwood Greenway as a connector to other trails in the area, and included a pedestrian bridge over the Manchester Road (old Route 66) to provide access between the north and south trails.  This is a paved trail, and while a little hilly, isn’t too awful.  Folks walk, run, and cycle on this trail seemingly every day.

When I first started running — three years ago — this trail was my go to place.  I knew where the 5K turnaround point was, and there’s no vehicular traffic to deal with.  It’s still the site of my PR in the 5K distance back in 2012.  (Picture a turtle being chased by a slightly faster turtle to whom he owes money.)

Thursday, at lunch, I decided to put this trail to good use, and earn this medal.  I was coming off the color run over the weekend, and a terrific interval run on the Greenway (0:30/1:30 splits), and figured it was a cooler day, and would be a great experience.  I was a little over expectant!

I got to the trail, stretched, and got moving.  And unfortunately, in the first ten minutes, I knew this wasn’t gonna be good.  The sun was much hotter feeling than I was expecting, and my shins were already starting to complain.  What I thought was gonna a be a great interval run turned into “just” a walk, with some real slow parts for me.

I don’t know if I started out too fast, didn’t stretch enough, or if the conditions were just that bad for me… regardless of the cause, the going was slow and methodical, with a mantra to “get ‘er done.”  And ultimately, I did finish — I haven’t “not” finished yet — and secured another medal (which should arrive next week!) for my medal display, and chocked up more miles for me this year.

This race benefitted the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Race Course

 

Running, Sports

Race #52 – The Color Run Night 5K

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I’ve said it before, I’m not much for “novelty races” — mud runs, cave crawls, and the like.  It’s not the I mind the events too much, but a lot of them are nationwide touring events with no medals.  However, there are a few things that’ll trip my trigger, and pique my interest.  One is NASCAR tracks.

When I found out that the Color Run Night was gonna be held on the track at Gateway Motor Speedway, I was in.  There was no medal, but it was on the track!  And then, I discovered that they also had another race from these folks in September, the Color Run Shine, that would have a medal.  Woot!  I signed up for both.

Unfortunately, I got an email a couple of days ago that the Shine race in September was gonna be cancelled.  No real explanation, just due to “circumstances beyond our control.”  There went my medal, but I still had the race on the track, so that was good.

I went out Saturday morning, and started gathering the things I’d need for the race — goggles (to protect my glasses and eyes), a couple of cowbells, and lots of glo-sticks.  I wanted to be dressed right for this event!

Drag Strip
Drag Strip

I got to the track a couple of hours ahead of the race start, as suggested, and wandered around the facility.  This track is both an oval, as well as drag strip.  When I was a kid, I liked drag racing, and it was extremely cool to stand at the start line, and look down the track.

As it was really hot — about 90° — I figured I needed hydration and a little food.  The concessionaires were dealing, so I scarfed a big ol’ soft pretzel and a bottle of water.

And knowing there was no medal, I went to the “company store” and picked up a keychain.  I figured I could get some ribbon, and make a medal out of that little plastic do-dad.

The stage group were whipping the growing crowd into a frenzy, with music, swag flung into the crowd, and group Zumba.  It was looking to be a good-sized and energetic group as the sun set, and we got closer to the start time.

Start Line
Start Line

We started to corral near the start line, and it was evident that this was gonna be fun.  Folks had their lights, glo-sticks and glow-in-the-dark stuff revved up, and little by little, we were released in waves onto the course.

Shortly after my wave took off, we turned, and found ourselves on the drag strip.  Although it was dark, you could still see the dark rubber from all the burnouts.  Walking on that, however, was anything but fast.  The rubber laid down by all those tires was tacky, and it felt like you were walking on fly paper.  Probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever walked on!

One after another, the throng I was with crossed into color zones where we were doused in colored powder.  There was also a zone with bubble machines, and another with black-light messages on the pavement.  From the flats of the straightaways to the banks of the turns, the course was great, and loads of fun.

One thing I’ll mention is that the course was short of 5K — my Garmin measured about 4.3km, but with the walk from the parking to the course, and back, I’m counting it as a 5K!

Crossing the finish line, I was handed a bag, filled with the same colored powder that was covering everyone.  This was for the after-party.  And then, someone put a medal in my hand.

Now, the medal was a “Shine” medal, not a “Night” medal, but that was fine with me.  My guess is that the medals for the Shine event on September 19th were already in town, so they were just used for this event.  Works for me!

The after-party was a blast.  People were everywhere, all covered in every color of the rainbow, and all having a great time.  Every ten minutes or so, the announcer would countdown to another “color blast”, which is when those bags of color would be launched among the crowd.  It’d look like a massive fog falling from the sky when folks would fling their colored powder in the air.  It was really cool, and gave a great medium for the lasers from the stage to shine through.

And finally, they had a fireworks show.  And not just bottle rockets — real good fireworks that went on and on.

Post-Race
Post-Race

When I got home, I got a good look at my clothes, and man was I a mess!  I had color-covered arms.  I had a color-covered belly — I have no idea how that happened!  My shoes were orange.  I was a mess.

After I got in the house, and figured out how to keep from tracking color all over the place, I hopped in the shower, and began to try to scrub off all the color from me.  Frankly, I was surprisingly successful, although there’s still a little color on me.  During the shower, though, it looked like someone was wringing out a Smurf — so much dirty blue-ish colored water!!

Yeah, I don’t usually do this kind of race, but I believe this may be a return event for me.  It was that fun!

EDIT:  Here’s the video from the race.  Warning… it’s kinda long!

This race benefitted the American Red Cross of Eastern Missouri.

Race Course

Running, Sports

Race #50 – Phone Home 5K

After my success on Saturday morning, I got cocky, and returned to the Greenway yesterday afternoon.  I thought I’d have a great time of it, zipping through 5km, and maybe even adding a few more miles.  And even more optimistically, I set my Garmin to work through  some interval work to see if I could get my times down.

Mr. Sun, however, had an entirely different plan.

I got out to the Greenway just after work, and noticed it was hotter than I expected.  Earlier in the day, we’d had a small storm come through that scrubbed out the atmosphere, and made things really nice.  Apparently, nature abhors a vacuum, and where the humidity had poured down as rain, it was replaced with vicious crazy nasty humidity with big, nasty pointy teeth.  So, not just hotter, but more humid.  Hooray.

Jumping on the trail, I started moving my feet.  I knew I’d take five minutes or so of walking to warm up, and shortly after that, I started to work my intervals.  By the end of the third interval, I knew I was not landing in a happy place, and quickly, my times fell off, and I was looking at conditions and a pace more like the ugly race in Washington almost a month ago.  This too, had turned in a death march across the desert of pavement.

I slogged on, and on, and on, wondering if this distance would ever be complete.  It felt like some kind of sick Groundhog Day, with the pavement beneath my feet never seeming to end.  I finally got to my three-quarters complete point, and knew I was gonna make it through.  Frankly, there’s really no option but to finish — there’s no way to get back to the parking lot, shy of some kind soul stopping on the side of the road to rescue you and ferry you along.

So, I finished — yay! — but I was toast afterward.  Note to self… heat and humidity DO NOT MIX!!!

Race Course

Running, Sports

Race #49 – Sage Rat River Run 5K

Somewhere along the way, I’d heard of the virtual races at Virtual Run World, but for whatever reason, I wasn’t watching them for  races.  Their medals were kinda large and gaudy, and didn’t trip my trigger.  However, I learned recently that they sponsor a “real world” race, and that they were selling off excess medals from those race series.

That race is the Sage Rat River Run, which is run at a variety of distances, and one of those is 5K — right in my wheelhouse.  The other thing that was enticing about this was the rat on the medal.  Darla’s been chasing rats in tubes as part of barn hunt, and doggone-it, I wanted to have my own rat reward!  🙂

I decided to return to the Wildwood Greenway, and run on it for the first time in a couple of years.  This is a great paved trail, with paths on both the north and south sides of Highway 100 (Manchester Road), and is the site of my PR at 5K back in 2012.  Of course, on a nice day, it’s pretty crowded with walkers, runners and cyclists.  Yesterday was no exception.

I’d intended to just go 5K, but kinda got in a groove, and started exploring the trail, getting into some of the nooks and crannies I’ve never explored.  Before I knew it, I was over five miles for the second weekend in a row.  And once again, I found that I had a nice rhythm going (albeit not the fastest in the world!), which is giving me some real confidence about the upcoming half-marathon in Tulsa come November.  I get it that five miles is significantly less distance than 13.2 miles, but the early returns are looking promising!

So, with this weird course yesterday morning, I have no good way of extracting splits for either 5K or 5mi.  C’est la vie.  Sometimes, it’s about the journey, rather than the metrics!

Race Course

Running, Sports

Race #48 – Road Shark Five Mile Run

Given that we all survived another Sharknado, I just had to run this virtual race!

I wanted to challenge myself, and do something a little longer than the 5K races I’ve been doing lately.  Five miles is about 8km, and is a small stepping stone to the half-marathon distance (a little over 21km) that I’ll be doing in November.

Frankly, I’d been dreading this run for a few days.  It’s summer.  This was the longest distance I’d done in almost three months.  And lastly, I was doing it on my own — no race support, other runners, etc.  All that weighed heavy on me as I thought through my route planning for this morning.

I landed on a good, extensible course, which was the path up Clayton Road.  That’s been my favorite 5K route, despite the recent runs on the Wren Trail course.  I’ve favored Wren lately because of traffic.  I love having music in my ears when I’m on course, and Clayton Road just has too much traffic on it to do that, unless you get out early in the morning.

I ate my regular raceday breakfast — toasted english muffin, with peanut butter and honey, paired with a tall glass of water —  stretched and headed out around 6am, just after sunrise.  And right from the start, this run felt different.

The weather was amazing, especially given the heat we’ve had over the last couple of weeks.  I think that was really fortunate for me, as I’ve proven many times this summer that I don’t do well in the heat.

I marched down Clayton, and things were coming easy.  Way easy.  I got to my turnaround point for a 5K, and did a little bit of a gut-check.  Did I have it in me to go beyond this point, and complete these five miles?  I felt good, so I plowed on.

When I planned my route a few days ago, I was surprised to see how far up the road my turnaround point was gonna be.  Somehow, my brain had that location figured to be a whole lot farther away from the house than I’d just seen on the map.  I just knew that couldn’t be right, and I knew I’d be watching my Garmin to make sure I knew my “real” turnaround.

I got closer to my planned turnaround point, and began to climb the last hill on the eastbound side of my route, and I was struck by just how far I’d come… both in my personal journey, as well as this run.  I would never have believed I could’ve travelled on foot so far.

I turned around — and my race planning was correct! — climbed that hill again (from the other side), and got into a great groove going down the long grade as I continued westward.  In what seemed like no time, I passed my 5K turnaround point, knowing I had just over 2km to go.  And right about then, I got a gift.

A business was watering their lawn.

I didn’t dance in the sprinklers, but I did take it in, and let it rain down on me.  Even though it wasn’t especially hot this morning, that unexpected shower felt wonderful, and was the best part of the route this morning.  I was energized by this, and continued to work toward the ranch.

It seemed like I blinked, and was home.  It seemed like the whole course went by so fast, especially the last 2km.  If I had to guess, I was enjoying the benefits of that “runner’s high” that I keep hearing about, but has never quite found me.  This wasn’t the longest run for me — that was the Hospital Hill 10K in early June — but it was by far the best run I’ve had since I began this journey three years ago, taking advantage of my second chance after cancer.

So, how’d this match up against my 10K times two months ago?  Well, it’s pretty amazing.  In June, the race was just over six miles, and I covered it at a pace of 17:54min/mi.  This morning, I did just over five files, and covered it at 16:35min/mi.  I shaved 1:20min/mi off my time in June!  And frankly, this morning, I really believe I could’ve done 10km easily.  Things were going just that well.

After a couple of weeks of pretty challenging running, it was awesome to have a really, really good run!

Race Course
Running, Sports

Race #47 – Guts to Glory 5K

Yet another virtual race… shocker, eh?  🙂

(And yeah, the header image isn’t from this race, but it’s the only image I could think of that had a “gut” in it!)

Yesterday was hot.  There’s no other way to describe it.  Ninety degrees in the shade, and there wasn’t a lot of shade.  However, Da Lou had a “cold” front come through overnight, so the humidity was much less, which  was nice.

I was surprised at the number of folks out on the trail.  I guess the brutal heat of the last week had kept the casual runners and walkers (like me!) indoors.  With the ten degree drop in temperatures since Wednesday and much lower humidity, folks just had to break out, I suppose.  Kinda like cabin fever, but in the summertime.

For me, the heat was exhausting, but it always is.  Despite being a native Floridian, I’m just not a hot-weather kid.  I found myself drinking more water on the course — which is the right answer! — and was pretty dang spent by the time I got home.  There’s a good reason so many races are started in the morning, especially this time of year!

This race benefitted the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America.

Race Course
Running, Sports

Race #46 – Remember the Fallen 5K

Anyone who’s read my ramblings about running knows that I love to be out in the rain.

I’d missed this virtual race around Memorial Day when it first came around.  The Virtual Strides folks brought it back recently, with another production run of medals.  After the events back home in Chattanooga, I knew I had to sign up, running this race for the city that helped shape me into the person I am today.

I’d targeted doing this race Saturday morning, but struggled getting myself together to do it, so I deferred to yesterday morning — one of the nice things about a virtual race.  I awoke around 5am to storms, so I didn’t exactly get an early start.  However, I did get started, and that’s a good thing!

Once again, I ran my neighborhood “three lap” course down Wren Trail.  It was raining when I started, which was nice.  And as I ran, I reflected on the last week plus in Chattanooga.  My home town has been bruised by the awful, awful tragedy perpetrated upon our military on their own soil.  My heart’s just so heavy over this.

And that’s why I ran this race… to remember the fallen in my home town.  #NoogaStrong, indeed.

This race benefitted the Special Operations Warrior Fund.

Race Course

Running, Sports

Race #45 – Hollywood Dash Mile

Normally, I don’t jump into short races like this one.  After all, I’m trying to build up my miles toward a 15K and half marathon later this year.  However, I couldn’t resist a short little race on a hot summer night.

This was this group’s first racing event, and frankly, it went off pretty well.  They looped inside the St. Charles Community College campus, which made traffic control and the course pretty easy.  I will say that the heat was miserable, but that’s not the fault of the event folks!

There were two waves of races — one non-competitive and another for competitive runners.  The non-competitive was fun to watch starting, with loads of kids and families taking off at “kid speed”.  Thirty minutes later, the competitive wave began, and I took off.

They had tons of volunteers along the way, and a course well-marked in quarter miles.  The race came and went quickly, and despite some slight hills, was very manageable.  Once again, I proved that I don’t do well in the heat, and did just as much fast walking as I did running.

This is the first “short race” I’ve done in well over a year, and frankly, I enjoyed it.  I’m definitely no sprinter, but I did collect a PR for me for both the mile and kilometer, which was pretty exciting.

The only hitch seemed to be with the finisher medallions advertised on the website for the race.  Apparently, there were only age group medals.  The event organizers have indicate on Facebook that they’re working on how to resolve this, especially since there were so many kids running the races.  Probably more on this another time!

Short race — short race report!

This race benefitted Recreation Council of Greater St. Lois, St. Louis Life, Treehouse of Greater St. Louis, Willows Way, Pathways to Independence, Family Advocacy and Community Training, Community Living, Caring Solutions, The Center for Autism Education and ShowMe Aquatics and Fitness.

Race Course

Running, Sports

Race #44 – Wheels and Heels 5K

My dad used to say, “Sometimes you get the bear; sometimes the bear gets you.”  This race was definitely in the latter category.

I’d never heard of this race, and probably for good reason.  It was only the second time they’d run this event, and it included a 5K and 10K, along with a 10mi, 20mi and 30mi ride.  However, it was to benefit a broad set of good causes.  With that kind of coverage, and a medal at the end, how could I say no?

The race site was in Washington MO, which is about 45 minutes west of my house.  That’s about the same time it takes for me to get to downtown St. Louis for a race, so that wasn’t a bad thing.  However, that meant waking up at 4:30am in order to get ready, and be in Washington around 6am for packet pick-up.

I got there, and went to pick up my packet — shirt, bib, and sack o’ goodies.  The registration person asked my name, and then flipped to the second sheet of paper to find me.  Yep, there weren’t many folks signed up for the race — maybe 40 folks across both the 5k and 10k.  By far, this ended up being the smallest race I’d ever been part of.

After some opening comments by the organizers — reminding us to stay hydrated due to the heat advisory, and not to drink the water because of a boil order in the area —  we were off just after 7am.  And much of the first half kilometer was downhill — sweet!  And then it was up-down-up-down through Washington.  And the hills just kept on coming.  I kept watching for a hydration station, which was supposed to be around halfway… and never found it.

Now, I learned a long time ago to always carry water when I’m running, walking or cycling.  You just never know when you’re gonna need a slurp, and whether you can find any close-by can be a crap shoot.  Today, carrying water was the smart money.  Apparently, someone had been stealing the course signs, so many of us at the back of the pack were actually off the race course by a few blocks where it mattered the most — around the halfway point where the hydration station was.  Add this to the hills and unrelenting heat, and it became a pretty miserable race pretty quick.

I never come to a full stop during a race, but I stopped on the course a couple of times to talk with the traffic marshals.  I needed rest, and that was a good way to do it.  And for the first time in a long time, I really questioned if I would finish the race.  In fact, I questioned everything — why I was doing this, whether I could possibly do races in the future, my own existence… 🙂  Sometimes, there’s just a little too much alone time on the route!

Finished!
Finished!

But, I finished, having gone a little more than 5K due to the hijinks with the race route.  I felt kinda bad for the poor kid that had to stand there and wait for me to show up to put a medal in my hands.

I never expected this race to be so tough.  I think the frequent hills were part of that, but I also think the lack of water (for my course), and the fact that I rarely saw another member of the race or staff during the race certainly added some mental challenge to the event for me.

Done is done, though, and I’m happy to drop another race in the books.

(This race benefited the National MS Society, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation – Gateway Chapter, and the Brad Cohen National Tourettes Foundation.)

Race Course

Running, Sports

Race #42 – Independence Day 5K

Man, there were a lot of virtual races available this year around the 4th of July!  I saw this one from Moon Joggers first, and frankly, of all of them, this one had the coolest medal.

I really wanted to get out Wednesday and run.  We had amazing conditions in Da Lou.  At lunch, it was about 63°, but the rain was pretty intense.  I enjoy running in the rain, but this was a real storm, and I figured that it’d be best if I didn’t tempt fate by running amongst the trees with a storm overhead.

So, yesterday ended up being my running lunch day.

It was still pretty dang nice, with clouds and about 67° outside.  I took a new route that kept me off the big roads, which meant laps on Wren Trail.  I’m not usually a fan of laps, but the laps actually went by quickly, and made for a pretty safe feeling run with no cars to deal with.

And really, the time on the trail was great.  It was a pretty easy go, and I think I’ve now found a new neighborhood course for some variety.

With that, race #42 is in the books, and another medal is on the tree!

(This race benefitted the Wounded Warrior Project.)

Race Course