Long Beach City Manager’s Race to Remember 10M 2021

After suffering through a long winter of miserable cold, I look forward to some warmer weather so that I can, perhaps, actually hand in a decent race performance. That’s really why I registered for this: a late-May date made it seem like the odds would be in my favor to score a 10-mile PR.

Joke’s on me!

Cruel and unusual punishment, I tell you. Cruel and unusual punishment. (I also did not run three miles before and three miles after the race. I wound up with less than 13 total for the day. Because I do not enjoy freezing to death, weird as that may sound.)

Anyway, I couldn’t actually remember what my 10M PR was, but I knew it was 1:07:xx, so I decided 1:06:59 seemed like a reasonable goal. 10.10 miles (to allow for GPS error) in 1:06:59 is 6:38/mi, which seemed quite unreasonable, especially given the forecast, but I gamely decided to give it a shot anyway. I mean, I was already there. If nothing else, I’d get a change of scenery.

Spoiler: it did not quite go according to plan.

I don’t mind running in the rain. I actually quite enjoy it. I do, however, mind running in a cold rain. Especially a cold windy rain like this one. When the wind was behind us, it wasn’t too terrible… but when going into a headwind? Oh, hell, no. I am not made for this kind of weather.

By mile 5, I knew I wasn’t going to PR — not without a miracle, and there were no miracles awaiting me. So I downgraded to just trying to finish under 1:09 instead. However, what was awaiting me was a stretch along the water directly into a headwind to hit the finish line. And even though I’m generally a strong finisher, I guess I couldn’t be bothered to fight it. It’s not like it mattered, right?

And so I missed by a few seconds. Please note my poor frozen red hands.

Garmin recorded 10.07 miles in 1:09:07, 6:52/mi. Hey, only about two minutes off my goal! Ha.

Officially, 10 miles in 1:09:05, 6:55/mi. 34/207 OA, 1/13 F35-39. I don’t know whether it’s bad or good that this is close to GMP for me, because I probably could have gone longer at that pace… I just couldn’t go faster, even though the distance was shorter. I suppose I’ve always been better at longer distances anyway, but it’s still kind of frustrating.

Mother Nature, apparently, is not my friend.

Al Goldstein Summer Speed Series #1 2021

Life is getting somewhat back to normal, as evidenced by the fact that it is now possible to have a summer speed series race, which means I get to spend all day stressed out over it! Because of restrictions, there were several start times, so I chose 6:45 … that’s twenty-five fewer minutes of pre-race aggravation than I’d have to experience with the traditional 7:10 start time.

Of course, since it’s an Al Goldstein race, there was the threat of thunderstorms, so all the waves were condensed into two… essentially, it was a normal mass start. So bizarre.

I’d venture to say that about 75% of the people in that photo passed me going up the hill. Which I loved, since it meant I wasn’t being stupid, and I got to pass half of them later. I’m not sure how many of them were women, but there were enough of them that I knew the guy who came up next me a little over halfway through and told me that I was the fourth female was wrong. (How would he know, anyway? He came from behind me.)

Same old, same old. It wasn’t exactly sunny at the start — it was when I ran to the park, which is why I was wearing sunglasses. I generally run in sunglasses unless it’s actually raining, because water beaded up on the lenses makes it impossible to see. So even though it had gotten ominously dark by the time the race started, I kept the glasses on; what else was I going to do with them?

I made it up the hill and through the first mile exactly on pace, which I’ve determined to be roughly twenty seconds slower than my desired overall average pace. It should have been no big deal to gain back the time lost on the hill, and that’s generally what happens… but Mother Nature went insane. It was so dark that I had no choice but to prop the sunglasses up on my head, which kind of sucked since there was also some sort of crazy windstorm or sandstorm going on, and things were flying through the air and into my eyes. Never mind that I was running into a headwind: I couldn’t see where I was going. And then it did start to rain, big fat plopping raindrops. Wheeee!

Of course, at that point I already knew I wasn’t going to hit my goal, and probably wasn’t going to manage a sub-20 either, so I didn’t feel like there was any reason to give it a 100% effort.

I guess this is what I do in Al Goldstein season openers. I ran 20:14 in 2019… except it was a PR then, so it was far more exciting. (Apparently I wore the same shoes at that race that I did for this one, which is kind of funny.)

Garmin recorded 3.14 miles in 20:15, 6:27/mi. If you’re wondering at the discrepancy between the watch photo and the splits, it’s because after taking the photo of the watch, I idiotically pressed “resume” instead of “save,” which is also why the finish marker on the map looks weird. This is why I’m glad I didn’t put forth a 100% race effort: I didn’t save this as a race on Strava, since doing that makes it default to elapsed time instead of moving time, changing my average pace from 6:2x to 8:0x.

Officially, 3.1 miles in 20:15, 6:31/mi. 43/257 OA, 8/114 F, and 2/17 F35-39. Thanks to COVID, there was no awards ceremony, which I actually kind of liked. It was nice to be home by 7:30, when normally I’d just about be crossing the finish line then.

Not that getting home earlier meant I got to avoid a crappy night’s sleep, but still. (Also? My ribs weren’t too thrilled with this. It’s been seven weeks already; it shouldn’t still be doing that. Getting old sucks.)

I keep saying I’m not going to do these anymore, because it’s stupid to subject myself to all the stress… if it’s a morning race, I get it out of the way and that’s that, but this literally eats up an entire day. And my digestive system. Yet I keep doing them anyway.

Because I am an idiot.

QDR Rockaway Beach 10K 2021

According to Dr. Google, the expected healing time for bruised or broken ribs is 3-6 weeks. That puts me in the latter gray area, which is frustrating. It’s wonderful that I’m not in agonizing pain with every movement, but being unable to do certain things is getting kind of old. (For example, I miss climbing. I can almost feel my core strength disintegrating. I know it will come back, but still.)

Anyway, because I’m sometimes not so smart, I decided that since I was past the three-week mark, I’d take another stab at a 10K PR after having to DNS the race a couple of weeks back. This one was in Rockaway Beach: a relatively fast course, if you get a day without wind. Which, let’s be honest, never happens when you’re right off the water.

But this is pretty good, especially when compared with my last race there! The warmer temperature was also appreciated, even if I shivered before the race actually started.

It was a pretty small field, as races these days tend to be. Both distances started together, which is always nice because you can tell yourself that the people ahead of you are doing the shorter distance. Which didn’t turn out to be something I needed to tell myself, since there were two guys ahead of me, and then… that’s it. The field really spread out. Which I like from a social-distancing, no-need-to-pull-up-the-buff perspective; not so much from a “this is a race” one.

One lap for the 5K, two laps for the 10K. The wind direction meant that except for that little out-and-back right after the start, the second half of the course was straight into a headwind. It was already pretty obvious to me that a PR was not going to happen, but when I finished the first lap and realized I’d need to run a sub-20 5K to reach my goal, I decided to just aim for a negative split instead.

Basically HM PR pace. Why do I feel like the quest for a 10K PR is going to become a repeat of the chase for a sub-1:30 HM?! Except if I’m training for fall marathons, I should probably let this go for now…

Garmin recorded 6.27 miles in 42:14, 6:44/mi.

Officially, 6.2 miles in 42:10, 6:47/mi. That’s one minute slower than my goal (I want my official 10K PR to at least equal the unofficial one I set in a time trial), and one second slower than my last 10K. Major face-palming there. But at least I did negative split. 3/27 OA, 1/9 F.

Hey, I won, so. Consolation prize!

Summer Warm Up Run 15K 2021

I don’t remember how I stumbled upon this race, but it was exciting to me because the 15K is a pretty rare distance: my PR was from 2015, and that’s not because I haven’t looked for opportunities to better it, it’s because I couldn’t really find any! I took note of the date of this, and held off on registering since I was tempted by the idea of the 30K as well.

And then I went to Mexico for a week to go diving. Which was awesome and I loved it, until the moment right before my last dive when a wave toppled me over just as I was swinging my second leg up on the bench to sit on the side of the boat for a backwards roll entry, as a result of which I wound up landing on that side of the boat on my ribs instead of my butt. I suppose it was a small saving grace that I am always so cold: there was more neoprene there to protect me than there would have been if I had the body temperature of a normal person. But it didn’t help enough so that I wasn’t still in a fair bit of pain. I managed to run a couple of times before I went home, so I was pretty sure that I hadn’t actually broken anything, but it wouldn’t make a difference: you can’t do much for injured ribs regardless of whether they’re broken or bruised. Running hurt, but so did not running; it wasn’t unbearably painful so long as I didn’t run fast.

The day after I got home, I hopped on the AlterG, which was unbearably painful because of the way the air bubble pushes up the skirt of the shorts. It put a lot of pressure on my lower ribs and that was unbearably painful, so I called it quits for a few days. Which really, really sucked, since I was registered for a 10K that was supposed to be a PR attempt. I went out to run a single test mile the night before the race, and I decided to opt out of it because I might have been okay running the distance, but it would have been slow and it would have hurt and it would not have been an enjoyable experience at all.

A few days later, I tried again. Still slow. Which is why I didn’t actually register for this 15K until Friday, after I’d managed to throw in a few fartleks. (At a higher-than-usual heart rate, but can’t have everything.) The 30K didn’t even cross my mind; I was just glad a distance still existed that should be an easy PR, even if I doubted whether I’d be able to handle the pain of running faster for a longer distance. (I feel compelled to say that this isn’t AMA; ribs heal in their own time regardless of what you do, and it’s fine to run if you can maintain your form.)

Perfect running weather, of course! And yes, I did drive really far for this. I am not always so smart.

These would have been my shoe pick for the 10K I had to DNS, so I just went with them. I was too tired to make any decisions. (Have I mentioned that this was also two and a half days post-COVID vaccine? Not that I’d know if I were fatigued from that, given how exhausted I always am anyway, but it probably didn’t help.)

Anyway, it was a cute little local event with a variety of distances from which to choose: 5K, 10K, 15K, 20K, 30K, 40K, 50K. 30K through 50K started half an hour earlier, which made me glad to be doing the 15K! It was a 5K loop, over and over and over, which I generally like. Though when I requested an elevation profile beforehand and they sent me the Garmin route, I neglected to take into account that the elevation net/loss I was seeing was for 5K, not 15K. (See: I am not smart.) So it was a little hillier than I was expecting, and it was kind of annoying that the first mile was the fastest, but it really wasn’t too bad.

Since they sent me a Garmin route, I took the trouble of downloading it to my watch to help me not get lost. That’s another point in favor of looped courses: after the first one, getting lost is generally not much of a problem. When I asked at bib pickup if the course was simple enough for me to not get lost, I was told that it was, and to just follow everyone else. This is hilarious in retrospect.

It is a relatively simple course, if you’re from the area and know where you’re going. The roads were actually open to traffic, but that wasn’t a problem at all; I see more traffic during a four-mile 6 AM run at home, and there were marshals out there to stop cars if need be. I didn’t need to pause once, which is great, because that would not have made me a happy camper.

And I was kind of happy: my ribs didn’t hurt as much as I was expecting! I thought getting anywhere near a 7:00 pace would be excruciating, but it really wasn’t. Maybe the fact that I was running a “race” helped, but it didn’t feel any worse than running slowly had a few days earlier.

Also? I followed someone for the first mile and a half. Then I passed him and had nobody else to follow. So that was great. Thank goodness I had the course on my watch, because otherwise I’d have been freaking out the whole time over whether I’d made a wrong turn.

I didn’t really have a time goal per se, so I decided to go for three 22:00 5Ks and aim for a sub-1:06 finish. That’s a 7:05 pace, which is much slower than I’d like under ideal circumstances, but this whole rib situation is exactly the opposite of ideal. And that is why I was actually quite delighted to run a 15K more than two minutes slower than I “should” have been able to.

It’s always a treat when Garmin measures the course short, and it hardly ever happens! Obviously, those races where the course is half a mile short don’t count…

9.28 miles in 1:05:15, 7:02/mi.

Officially, 9.3 miles in 1:05:09, 7:00/mi. That’s a PR by just over eight minutes, so I can’t really be upset with that, though my heart rate was definitely higher than it should have been for that pace. I also “won.” If you consider it a race, which most people didn’t, as evidenced by the fact that my pace was faster than everyone else’s… even the people in the shorter distances. But then, they didn’t drive 75 miles (one way) like I did, and I wouldn’t do that to run an easy few miles, so there is that.

I suppose this is what happens if you register after the “custom medal” deadline and they can’t find any 15K charms for you. I find it kind of… charming. No pun intended.

So. It has now been 18 days since I injured my ribs — I know this because my watch keeps track of my surface interval to depress me with how long I’ve been landlocked — and supposedly, this sort of thing takes between three and six weeks to fully heal. Does that mean I’m going to be back to 100% in three days??