The Ten 5k Challenge, Race #9 Recap (Syracuse Festival of Races)

I never wrote a race recap for race #8, the CNY Lungetivity 5k I ran two weeks ago, because the course was identical to the 5k ARC race I ran the week prior. It was a small group, 90 runners, and I ran it slower than I did the ARC race but managed to win a trophy for finishing 9th overall and 2nd in my age group.

That leads me to today's ninth 5k of 2010, the Syracuse Festival of Races.

So I got to the race this morning about 45 minutes before start time. The Festival of Races 5k is held just off of the Syracuse University campus; the start and finish lines are in front of Manley Field House which is where most of the team's non-Carrier Dome athletics are played. And what I noticed when I got out of my car was that it was COLD. About 45 degrees, to be precise. I am wearing just a tech tee and shorts and a baseball cap. My arms are cold and my hands are numb. Luckily the shirt they gave out to the runners was a long sleeved tech shirt, so I layer up and basically hop around until race time. This gets it done and it starts to warm up as the 9 AM gun time approaches. At about 8:55 I pop over to my car and ditch the hat and long sleeve tee as it had warmed up. And then it's GO TIME.

The course is basically a single hill at the start, followed by a mile and a half or so of suburban roads out, and then back again. A couple of things made this run different. First, in addition to a one mile split they had people calling out the splits at 1K, 2K, 3K, and 4k. Now I normally track my running in miles so I'm doing math in my head. Another difference is a chip time at 2.5K, basically a gate to run through halfway. Just something different.

At the 1K mark I'm clocked in at a cool 4:30. This is a decent pace for me, I figure at this pace I'm done in 22:30 and even if I slow down a bit I may break 23 minutes. My 1 mile split was a 7:05 which is about as fast as I've run them during the week. The sun is shining and I've got lots of elbow room... as this is a USATF sanctioned event I started in the back third and basically kept my place for the duration. At the 2K split I'm just over 9 minutes, so I'm still feeling good. I hit the turn, get to 3K at 13:35 or so. Still close to that 22:30-23 minute pace. Now is when I ease up just a smidge, as I'm starting to feel the gas. It's all flat here, and one or two runners pass me and I pass one or two others here and there, but I hit the 4K mark at a slower 18 minutes and 30 seconds.

Now I realize that if I want to set a PR I have to turn the jets back on. I get to the hill that started the race and someone calls out that I'm 400m from the finish. Just at this point the course veers and goes downhill and I find a little bit of a burst. I can see the clock and I know I've busted my PR by a nice margin, and I cruise in for a gun time of 23:12. I spent half the day wondering what my chip time was, as they weren't posting it anytime right after the race, but I knew I was several seconds behind the front group. Turns out I had a chip time of exactly 23 minutes.

But perhaps the best part of the event for me was watching a certain runner near the end of the finishers... there was someone working the PA system calling out bib numbers and names for the finishers as they crossed, and they announced it for all to see. Henry Sypniewski, trucking down the home stretch at around the 41 minute mark, wearing bib #92. Age 92. Set a USATF record for the fastest 5k ever run by a man at that age with a gun time of 41 minutes flat. I got choked up, I will admit it. This guy got some well-deserved cheers out there today.

No 5k races on the docket that I am pre-registered for. I am sure to run at least one more in 2010 as it was my resolution to do ten of them this year. There are a few races here and there between now and Thanksgiving, though I already have my eye on a "Turkey Trot" 5k on Thanksgiving morning.