No Donut Race Report

Some of you might remember that I enjoy an occasional donut. Of course, if you're any kind of an athlete, making a career out of donut consumption is probably not the best idea. They make great pre-race food though, and are equally well suited to fueling long days in the saddle. Digesting food on the bike is easy enough, and the combination of fat and sugar in a nice donut, particularly a non-chain (if you can find such a thing these days) old fashioned plain stays with you longer than many "engineered" workout bars.

Someone inquired whether or not I was going to do any running races this fall. The answer is yes. Just like last fall, I'll mix duathlons, running, and cx for the next few months. Of course I did not run at all for two months this summer. Furthermore, when we left off in June, it seemed my running just kept getting slower and slower, with my 5 mile race pace slipping into the mid 6 min/mile range, signifying time to hang up the sneakers for a bit. Late in August I started up again with some short runs. Through this weekend, I've accumulated a whopping 45 miles spread out over about a dozen efforts. And I've felt slow. However, being notorious for slow training paces, I started to wonder where I was compared to the spring, so I thought maybe entering a 5k this weekend would be a good idea, even though I haven't built enough base to race on. It would be like a training run. A quick scan of the local calendars unveiled a suitable event just a few towns over in Norfolk, sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts no less. The course was recently certified, and with the huge CVS 5k in Providence drawing all the local (and national, and international) talent, a tiny field was ensured.

I felt great race morning. Getting there early, I stretched, warmed up, and put on my race shoes. There were only about 100 runners, and nobody looked serious. On the gun, a high school kid wearing a green Papelbon shirt took off, and he ending up winning with a high 17 minute time. I hit the first mile in 5:48. That seemed pretty good. This year I've made it a goal to learn to negative split, and in training that's been my focus. 5:48 is too fast for me though, but there were some other little kids that I wanted to get around so shit happens. Second mile had a lot of downhill before heading back up, and I ran 5:55. By now I was in 3rd, but the fun was over. I passed the next guy, but being almost over the edge with five minutes still left to run, the final stretch was not going to be a negative split, that's for sure. The lead kid pulled away a bit and I suffered enormously, averaging 170 bpm while running the final 1.1 miles at a six flat pace to finish 2nd in 18:23, just 13 seconds off my PR.

Feeling pretty satisfied with the effort, and relieved to not be super-slow with just a month until my focus race, I headed out for a few miles of cooldown before returning to the festivities. Now I don't know about you, but I sort of expect a race sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts to maybe have donuts available as a post-race refreshment. Not that theirs are what I'd call great donuts, but I was looking forward to one. Nothing. No DD products at all. Instead, greasy hamburgers! Well, it was only 5k, so maybe no donut wasn't such a bad thing after all. But it was definitely a negative, so I split. Thanks for reading.