Untamed Runner

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that if you’re planning to race as part of your running lifestyle, it’s important to find the right distance niche for you. Of course, even if you’ve found a niche, sometimes adjustments need to be made. It’s fairly common for professional 5000M and 10000M runners to transition to the marathon. Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele did this with different degrees of success. This normally happens as they’re getting up in in years and it becomes more natural to maintain a speed that’s a little less than 10000M pace over a longer distance.

If you’ve read my “About” section, you’ll know I’ve been all over the place over the past thirty years and I’m not in a situation where shifting my focus would represent brand-new territory. For the last eight years or so, I’ve been focusing mainly on 5Ks because it’s a distance I feel balances my enjoyment of miles with pushing the accelerator. Also, I wanted to get several more in before going too far up the age ladder.

Following this past summer, when I’d hoped to turn in faster 5Ks than I did, I started to wonder if it was about time to stop focusing on 5Ks and start a shift to the half-marathon. This was logical: it’s a longer distance to accommodate my forward progress in years, I’ve generally felt comfortable with heavier mileage, and one of my best races in the past several years was a ten-miler. If I’m not able to shift into the extra, necessary gear to get the 5K time I want, maybe it’s time to change.

And, after tussling with the idea for a couple of weeks, I ultimately settled back into 5K plans for the rest of the fall. Why? A couple of reasons. It’s what all my training has centered around for the past several months. Also, the races I’ve run recently have featured very warm temperatures, which has had an impact on my time. Maybe some cooler temperatures through the fall will help adjust for that. And, sometimes athletes just go through a rougher patch.

If I get through the fall and I’m still not finding that extra gear, then it may be time to reevaluate. Is this the right approach? Only time will tell. I’m sure plenty of athletes have made the transition to a different event at the right time, others have jumped too soon, and others waited too long. It’s one big piece of the unknowns of athletic performance.

At the recent track events I ran, I noticed that more runners than I would have predicted were wearing Nike Vaporflys or other brands’ carbon-plated shoes. These offer much higher energy return than the shoes without plates. The most recent version of the Nikes indicate they can drop up to 3% off your time and that is not inconsequential. When Nike was first promoting them several years ago, it was less common to see them and that has changed. 

In the early days of the Vaporflys, many people argued that the shoes were an unfair advantage and constituted mechanical doping. After protracted, heated debate, World Athletics issued a standard on what was allowed with carbon plate usage. I figured their decision was a way to allow continued use (and let the records that had been set with them stand) while establishing ground rules. A lot of people continue to argue that the plates are too much of an advantage, yet the other shoe companies have been manufacturing their own versions, to the extent that in one publication, I saw a “best of” list of carbon-plated shoes from multiple manufacturers.

Now athletes from many, if not all, all brands have options. That’s a big shift from a few years ago though not a surprising one. The shoe companies don’t want their sponsored athletes to fall behind, literally. They also want to offer a faster product that all runners desire.

They’re still expensive: the most recent iteration of the Nikes are $240 and many of the other brands’ versions are over $200. If they can knock 3% off a time, that’s worth it for many athletes. Still, it’s a steep price for most people, even committed runners. They’re not designed to be dedicated training shoes because with the way the carbon plates work, they’re best used in races or in faster workouts. Thus, it’s not just about spending more on your trainers; the shoes need to supplement what you’re already wearing.

Even though some people are still critical of the shoes, public opinion has shifted, or people are at least willing to use them for the purposes of dropping their time, and despite their price, the use of carbon-plated shoes is more prevalent, even among amateur athletes. While I’ve been tempted to snag a pair, I haven’t done it yet. Yes, it would be a huge boost for my time but given the stakes, mostly my ego, I’m not sure they’re worth it. Will they become a necessity to be able to reasonably hang on with similarly talented runners? I suspect that like many technological advances, the companies will figure out ways to produce these shoes at a lower cost and the plates will be a common feature and not a luxury. However, given the way the shoes work, it also seems likely they’ll remain as a racing and speed shoe and in that sense, they may evolve like racing flats–a product that runners who are serious about their race times will seek out but that most runners won’t necessarily choose to wear. We’ll see where it goes with these shoes but we’re certainly in a different spot from a few years ago.

Following the Mile High Mile a couple of weeks ago, I joined a friend of mine in the Twilight 5000 at the Englewood High School track this past Thursday evening. It featured four, 5000 meter races and we were divided into heats based on self-reported goal times.

Track and road races both involve running but there are differences. One of those is the proximity of fellow runners. In road races, unless you’re in a really big event like the Bolder Boulder, or there happens to be a cluster of people who race at your speed, you have a lot of space around you. In fact, it’s considered poor etiquette to get right on someone’s heels or shoulders when you have an entire path or road to work with.

The opposite is true on the track. Short of colliding into people, it’s okay and common to be in close quarters. Prior to running the Mile High Mile last year, I hadn’t done an event on a track since I was a teenager and I wondered whether things would be chill, or if it would be like a Roman chariot race. It hovered closer to chill than chariot. That being said, in both track races I did this summer, I spent the majority of my time just a few inches off of another runner’s heels or shoulder, or with someone mere inches off of my heels or shoulder. (One runner clipped my heels but, to their credit, apologized mid-race.)

Oddly, while it’s not a style of racing I’ve done a lot of recently, it felt easy to adapt to. Maybe it’s just part of the atmosphere. Unlike a road race, on the track I knew the people around me had similar times and thus there was a much higher intensity. It’s possible the factor of “near-collision” added to the adrenaline. Also, having someone to work off of, either because they’re right ahead of you or right on your tail, can help mentally during a race.

If you’ve been doing road races and opt for a track one, don’t be surprised if you’re close to other people for a lot of it. Or, if you’ve been on the track and go to a road race, you may be surprised at the ample space around you.

For the second year in a row I ran the Mile High Mile, an event put on by the Boulder Road Runners that bills itself as “Under the Lights.” They choose a local track with light poles, start the event at 6:00 p.m., and have twelve-fourteen one-mile races where the runners are placed based on age and/or speed. By the time the last events occur, it’s dark and the lights are necessary. However, this year the stadium lights never came on which led to an interesting workaround.

When we arrived around 6:00, the lights were off and this struck me as odd. When we go to a Rockies night game, the lights are on at the beginning even though the sun is usually still out. I assume it allows for the players’ eyes to gradually adjust as the darkness deepens, instead of flipping the switch as the sun sets. While that wouldn’t be as much of a concern with runners, I just assumed the race organizers would turn them on early.

As the races progressed and the sun sank lower, the stadium light fixtures stayed dark. This was okay until it reached the third to last race, at which point it was fully night and challenging to see. It’s true that a track is a smooth surface with white lines and it has the same curves and straightaway on every lap. It’s also true that running in the dark, especially at faster speeds, can be disorienting, even when you know the surface is flat.

At some point, it must have been clear that the lights were not going to come on and the race organizer began asking people to drive their cars up to the track and park them facing inwards so their headlights would illuminate the race. He also said, and I assumed he was joking, that it would be helpful if people came down to the track and used their cell phone flashlights to add more light. Joke or not, a significant portion of the fans assembled on the track and did just that.

The result was an erie, sci-fi look of a couple of dozen sets of bright lights around the perimeter along with hundreds of tiny cell phone light bulbs on the track itself. From the stands, during the races you could see the runners coming in and out of the pockets of light as they ran between the headlights and the people on the edge of the track. It wasn’t as rapid or stark as a strobe effect, but it was close.

For better or worse, I didn’t get to run during this phase of unorthodox artificial illumination. It would have been fun to give it a try. Still, it goes down as an unusual race factor and something I hadn’t seen.

Over the past couple of months, as has been evident in my blog posts, I’ve wondered whether I’m still able to go under 19:00 in a 5K. Some days it seems within reach and other days, it does not.

There’s a 5K coming up at the end of the month that’s on a fast course and features a very fast field. If I were to run it, my chances at an age group place would be slim. However, my chance at being to run with someone who could help pull me to a fast time is high. The main reason I wouldn’t run it is commute time; it’s on the other side of the metro area and not convenient. If I’m feeling right on the edge of sub-19:00, it’s worth the trip and time.

How close to the 19:00 barrier do I feel? We were out of town earlier this month and for several days after I returned, my legs were inexplicably sluggish. I had crammed miles in during the first couple of days back so maybe combining that plus travel, plus more of a sugar and fast-food heavy diet during the trip, contributed to it. The sluggishness disappeared but I did another workout the other day where I wasn’t as fast as I’d hoped though I could chalk that up to dehydration. Still, given my race times over the past couple of months and feeling a little more sore the past two weeks, I’ve been on the more pessimistic side.

The day following the dehydration workout, I did a casual three miles, then decided to try a fast mile around my neighborhood. My initial pace was not where I wanted it to be and as I finished the first quarter mile, my thinking was that if it reflected my current conditioning, it was “no way” on doing the fast 5K. However, between the quarter and three-quarters mark, I was holding a 5:45-5:55 mile pace. Going into the final quarter, I thought maybe I could sneak in at 5:59 and was pleasantly surprised when I finished at 5:50.

Would that convert to a sub-19:00 pace, especially considering I’d run a tough eight miles the day before? It’s hard to say. But, I was a lot more hopeful than I had been at the quarter mile mark, and in the days leading up to it.

A vexing part of sport is that it’s not an exact science, especially in scenarios that are too close to call. Maybe the 5:50 was an unexpected burst of speed, or maybe the past couple of weeks were slower for any number of reasons but don’t reflect what I’d be capable of on race day. While I’m still undecided on the fast 5K, I’m at least very much in the middle. If I do go, regardless of what the most recent numbers say, I don’t think I’ll be making any guarantees, as I don’t think I’ll know.

Much of my running is relatively consistent. I stick to around 30 miles per week on a mixture of urban dirt trails and sidewalks/roads. The way I achieve the 30 miles is mostly consistent, doing basically four to six miles per day, six days per week. My schedule may dictate whether I do a six or four-mile run on any given day. If I know things are going to be busy some weeks and I’ll be limited to shorter runs most days, on a day when I have a little extra time I may stretch my run to seven or ten miles to ensure I hit the 30.

My speed work is a wild card. The goal is to get one day of speed in per week but I often may not make my final decision on the specifics of the workout until day of. It can range from 4X800 to 3X1000 and some weeks, I’ll substitute in an all-out six or seven-mile run for the speed.

A couple of weeks ago, I was waffling all over the place deciding among an all-out six-mile run on various courses and true speed work on the track, when I remembered a concept I came up with several years ago. My idea was to go out at a goal pace for a 5K and run until I either hit my goal time, or I fell off of it, whichever happened first. In a decision that was untamed, or at the very least unplanned, I decided it was time to try that out. A side bonus would be emphasizing to my body what that exact pace feels like. Per an earlier post, knowing your pace can be challenging so this would help.

I went to the track knowing two things were working against me: I was alone and it was hot. Off of the line, I suspected I was in trouble. Usually the first couple of laps feel okay and at some point past that it gets ugly. I basically held sub-19:00 through 2500M, gave it another 500M to see if I could get my time back, then knew I wouldn’t. Instead of struggling through, I took a 30 second pause, ran another 1000M all-out, took another 30-second pause, and ran the final 1000M all-out to round out the 5K.

The workout was tough but educational. I don’t know if I’m really that far off of sub-19:00, or if the two factors above held me way back. I’ll know more at my next race.

In the meantime, it was a new type of workout I’d never tried. In spite of not getting as close to my goal as I wanted, I think it was mentally and physically beneficial so I’ll take it as a positive, then give it another go at some point down the road.

One other quick note. You may have noticed a new menu item on the Untamed Runner page, Dry Creek Striders. If you click on that or here, there’s a brief write-up of the team.

There’s an out-and-back six-mile run along the trail near my house that I thoroughly enjoy. It includes one steep hill in the middle but otherwise is slightly net uphill on the way out and then slightly net downhill on the way back. Here’s what’s funny, and it may explain why I’m not a cartographer.

The ascent/descent at the turnaround doesn’t look that dramatic. However, when I make that turn, even if I don’t feel like I’m starting to push the pace harder, my per-mile pace noticeably drops, even if I don’t feel that different. Despite the gradual appearance, it makes a huge impact. On the flip side, the first mile out looks pancake flat but my time shows that it’s definitely not. I’ll feel like I’m running at a decent clip but my time is a bit slower than what I think it should be.

The moral of the story? The slightly visible/invisible changes in elevation may have a major impact on your time. Don’t get too rattled if your time is slower on an invisible climb, and don’t be too shocked if your pace plummets on a nearly invisible decline. Gravity actually works.

One thing athletes across all sports have in common is wanting success. There are obvious ways to measure this, such as winning a championship or an MVP award. There are also not-so-obvious ways. In Major League Baseball, every team wants to win the World Series but it’s not a reasonable expectation for most of them. ESPN put out an interesting list a couple of seasons ago identifying an achievable goal for every team and it included many outcomes including winning the World Series win, making the playoffs, or just having a winning record, among others.

For my race team, the Dry Creek Striders, of course we would enjoy sweeping a podium at a major marathon but that’s not reasonable. However, a couple of us did a race in the spring of 2022 and after it was over, we realized that had we all shown up, we would have swept the top three spots. In that moment, the idea of the team sweeping the podium in a race became a goal.

Of course, to create a sweep the top three finishers for the team have to be faster than the rest of the field. Over the following months, it didn’t happen for different reasons. There was at least one race where we could have swept but only two of us showed up, and a few races where a couple of other fast people thwarted our attempt.

We did a race this past Saturday, the Weld your Mettle 7K, where we hoped it might finally happen. As the race began, our two fastest runners, Collin Knaub and D.J. Hummel, took the lead. A third runner pushed them for a short bit but quickly fell back and it seemed apparent that they would hold the top two spots. However, the third-place person and one other runner were between them and me and the sweep was immediately in doubt.

I had projected a 28:00 time for the 7K, or 6:26 per mile. I knew the course was slightly downhill on the way out and thus slightly uphill on the way back. Not knowing the course and the 7K being an unfamiliar distance (I had never run it before; the closest for me was a 7.77K last year) I was determined to stick to my pace so as not to flame out early or have too much left. While I didn’t enjoy hanging back in fifth, I was patient and passed fourth place at around the half-mile point and then third place a little after the mile mark. I was then on my own.

At the turnaround, Collin and D.J. held a solid command of first and second so barring a complete meltdown, they would hold those spots. When I turned around, I made a note of how far behind me the next runner was. This was where I got concerned again. I did have thirty seconds on them but they were not one of the two that I had passed earlier. The now-fourth-place runner had worked his way up in the pack and I was wondering just how much fuel he had left. I increased my speed a little to immediately create a bigger gap, then settled back in to my planned pace.

At that pace, 30 seconds is a little over 120 meters and I kept two things in mind to keep from shifting into panic mode. The person behind me would have to run thirty seconds faster than me in order to catch me. Also, as I was starting to feel the effects of the net uphill, I kept in mind that they were also having to deal with the same elevation gain.

The result? I ended up crossing the line in 27:35 in third place and we finally got the sweep we wanted. We’ll enjoy it because like any success in athletics, you don’t know when or even if you’ll get the same result again.



Photo credits: Rob Knaub

My two fastest 5Ks were years ago but I remember they had one thing in common: in both cases I went out at a more conservative pace and then finished strong. I’ve attempted to mimic this strategy in recent races but it’s challenging for a couple of reasons. It’s wise to go out fast immediately off the line to get ahead of the scrum at the beginning of the race so you don’t get blocked in, especially in a big race and/or one where the course narrows in the first quarter or half mile. It’s then important to shift back into race pace but this isn’t the easiest discipline.

The other reason is that many runners like to bank their time to create some flexibility in their pace at the end. This is natural. It’s also risky and for me, it usually hasn’t worked. The occasions where I blasted an opening mile in a pace faster than what I planned for my overall time turned into a longer, disappointing race.

Let’s say my goal is to go under 19:00 in a 5K, or a 6:05 per mile pace. By the last part of a race, I normally feel sapped. It would feel much better to come through mile two in 12:00, knowing I can run a 6:15 third mile and make my goal, than to come through in 12:10 and still having to run yet another mile at that same pace, meaning I’ll actually have to push harder since I’m fatigued.

Ironically, this is why banking time can be a problem. If I’ve calculated my ability accurately and I’m actually in 18:59 shape, if I run my first two miles in 12:00, then I’m actually running 18:45 pace for that part of the race. I’ve pushed myself at a pace that I may be able to hold for 2.5 miles, instead of 3.1. While I do have extra time to work with, I’ve likely sapped my strength enough that even holding a slightly slower pace will be challenging, at best.

If I manage to hold the 12:10 pace exactly, it’ll mean a grueling finish. If I come through in a bit over that, say 12:15, it will still be grueling but I’ll probably have a little more fuel in the tank and I tend to believe that the extra fuel I have left against a little time I need to gain outbalances the time I’ve saved against the energy I’ve lost with banking time.

Of course, as readers of one of my recent posts know, you can go out too conservatively and not be in a position to make up time lost in the first mile. In my last race, when I crossed the two-mile mark at 12:52 instead of the 12:10 I needed for a sub-19:00 pace, even though I still felt fairly good, there was little to no chance of my ripping off a fast enough final 1.1 mile to get my goal.

It’s a delicate balance and given the challenge of pacing in general, it’s difficult to run the exact way you plan. But, still feeling a little zing in my legs tends to work better than having nothing left for the last push.

*Updated on 20 May to correct faulty URL link in text.

Race season is starting up for me and with that, learning a couple of new things. On a quick recap for The Dry Creek Striders, we’ve been at a few races already and we’ve enjoyed two overall wins, three podium finishes, and an age group win. At the Beat the Heat 5K last weekend, Collin Knaub earned both the win and a new course record.

Some of us ran at the Lucky Brew 5K in Windsor in March. When we arrived, the conditions were windier than had been forecast and while the course was flat and fast, there’s no real way to get around wind. Factoring all of that in, I went in expecting a 19:45 and ended up with a 19:20. Buoyed by this success, I figured another month of track work plus mileage would mean I could possibly dip under 19:00 at Beat the Heat. I ended up in 19:26. What happened? The course had a little more elevation gain and loss than Lucky Brew but I also was overly reliant on my watch.

My Garmin will show my per-mile pace but I’ve learned, especially when aiming for a very specific time, that when changing speed, the pace my watch displays takes a few moments to match what I’m actually running. I went out quickly to get ahead of the pack, settled in, and by the quarter mile point, I was showing a 6:00/6:05 mile pace, which is good enough for sub-19:00. I felt okay and I was ready to believe I could feel okay at that speed. In retrospect I should have known that it felt too good. By the time I realized it, my watch had leaped up to 6:35 pace and I was going uphill.

My first mile ended up being 6:25, which is just barely sub-20:00 pace. I knew I shouldn’t try to get it all back in the next mile so I didn’t go all-out and with more incline, I ended up with a 6:27 second mile. At this point, any thought of sub-19:00 was toast unless I was prepared to drop a 5:20 third mile. Even in the desperation of in-race-thinking, I knew this was not reasonable—my time at the Mile High Mile last summer was 5:41 and that was in an open race, not after having run two miles already. I did run mile three in 6:09 and got across the line in the aforementioned 19:26. Considering the difference in the courses, it was roughly comparable to Lucky Brew.

What lessons do I take away? Even if I am at the edge of sub-19:00, it would be close and I’ll need more training to get there. Probably more importantly, it was brutally reinforced that pacing is tough, even at professional levels. I’ll spend some time on the track and treadmill running my planned race pace and perhaps that will allow my body to have a better sense of my speed. In my next race, without going bonkers, I’ll know that 6:00/6:05 should feel a little more challenging than I thought. I’ll still need the watch to give me a reality check, but it will help counter any lag the watch is having. On to more training, and the next race…