When: Wednesday, June 19, 2019 – 7pm
Where: Frankfort, Illinois
Distance: 5K – 3.1 Miles
Results: 21:31 Official time / 25th Overall / 2nd Place 55-59 Male Age Group
Results Link: Race Results
I could make this an easy, two paragraph wrap-up, but why make it easy on myself?
Race day morning a coworker who works out at a local fitness club advised that a man had died while working out at her club the day before. Knowing that I have a history of running she was quizzing me about why I thought he had died. I could only speculate, but I figured that he probably had cardiac arrest related to heart disease and was triggered by exertion he was unprepared for. She wanted to be assured that she wasn’t going to code out as well, so I dug up several articles about deaths at fitness clubs and found that the majority of exercise-related deaths are due to exactly what I had thought, they were not fit and had a history of heart disease. But exercise in moderation is one of the best ways of preventing such deaths. Her fears were soothed and said she won’t worry about dying on the treadmill.
But the conversation kind of stoked my fears a little. My father died of heart disease at the age of 52. He was a smoker, my mom fried a lot of our meals, and did no exercise whatsoever. I took note of that at the age of 15 and have tried to live my life without such outside bad habits, and I started running in my early 20’s. But I often find myself running short, high-intensity races at high heart rates which make me feel like I’m maxing myself out and wonder if I’m going to blow up my heart. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened, and I am aware of the warning signs. But it’s always kind of in the back of my mind. As I stood on the starting line the thought of blowing up wasn’t even on my mind. It was time to beat as many as I could. Enough of the doom and gloom, on with the race report.
For a race that celebrates the first day of summer with a Wednesday night 5K, it was anything but summer-like. Air temp was about 63 degrees and it was drizzling. I debated as to whether I should race in a singlet or not but decided to do so. I joined the local running club group photo and then did my warm up.
The course was changed this year, pretty much running it in reverse from previous years I have run this race. I didn’t mind the change, except sometimes when you are seeing things you normally see in the latter parts of the race early on it kind of messes with me for some reason. I put that behind me and tried to settle in without going out too fast, but as usual, I failed.
There’s a guy that runs this race pushing his handicapped wife in a racing stroller and in the past he has kicked my butt. It’s always humbling when he beats me, and I marvel at his strength and ability. He quickly jumped ahead of me and I decided to jump in behind him. On the flats, he would put a pace or two on me, but when we hit the little rises in the road I would pull him back in. As much as I try to hold back early in a race and run negative splits, I never do because I can’t turn off the competitive aspect of it. I feared that he was making the same mistake that I was, heading out too strong, and we were going to pay for it later.
A little before the first mile I passed him and then worried about him the rest of the way. I went through the first mile split in 6:42 according to my watch, and decided to pull back just a touch as we headed up the road and onward to the bike trail. I was passed by another runner that had recently had a kidney transplant and said to him that it was me usually chasing him down. He laughed and I asked how his health was and was said he was great and thanked me for asking. Then he pulled away.
I went through the second mile split at 6:53 and was satisfied with that. A girl passed me and I said “go get it” and she encouraged me to grab on and go with her, but I told her I was waiting for another 1/2 mile before kicking. I mistakenly thought the course would continue on the path a little longer, but we turned off and hit the streets again. After a couple of turns, we made it to the ending straight to the finish. I glanced back at the trail and could see the stroller pushing runner not far back. A quick look at my watch showed that I had about a 1/4 mile left so I kicked hard up the hill back to the finish and was all alone. My watch showed 21:25, which is always quicker than the official time at this race. I’m not sure why that happens, but the official time is always slower than my watch. I was maybe five steps back from the starting line at the start, so there’s not much of a time difference there.
I cooled down and then went and joined some others from the running club to cheer on the rest of the runners. After a while, I got a little cold and went and changed into some dry clothes and waited for the results. Glad to hear my name called for 2nd in my age group. There’s lots of great competition at this race and to get an A/G medal is special. I had a pretty good race.
an amazing run 
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