Sunday, February 15, 2009

2009 Winter Winds 2mile & 4mile

2009 Winter Winds 2mile & 4mile
Huntsville, AL
February 15, 2009
Official 2 Mile Results
Official 4 Mile Results



Each year the Huntsville Track Club puts on the Winter Winds Road races in mid February as an unofficial kick off to the spring road race season. The 2 mile race begins at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon and then the 4 mile race begins just 30 minutes later.

So your options are:

A) Race one, not both, of the races and put forth full effort
B) Jog the 2 mile as a warm up and then race the 4 mile hard
C) Race the 2 mile and then use the 4 mile as a cool down
D) Race both all out and begin to suffer half way through the 4 mile race

Living in this masochistic running community that encourages crazy running behavior, there really is only one option, D.

Just a few weeks off of the Mountain Mist 50km, and working off of a post RCM recovery, I had done little speed work through January, so I knew these races would not be easy. My goal was to go out hard in both races and just hang on as long as I could. After all, is there another way to race?

In the 2 mile I did in fact go out hard and that I did. We left the parking lot and headed out onto Blevins Gap at a pretty quick pace, chasing Josh (Whitehead) and David (Riddle). I was running in the top 10 through the first 1/2 mile and then when we hit the top of the first hill, I started to push the pace and moved into 4th. Making the first right turn, I hit the mile in 5:19. I was feeling fine as this was so early in this myriad of races, but I knew that George (DeWitt), Donald (Bowman), John (Krichev) and a host of others were right behind me, all with sub 11 minute speed. My pace slowed slightly as we came back up Double Tree, which at a 40' climb over 0.15 miles in a 2 mile race, seems brutal. I made the turn back onto Blevins and headed back to the finish, all along thinking about the great kick of the guys behind me, who at any time could turn it on. On the last turn into the Grissom High School parking lot, I glanced several times back to see the gap to John. Finally I knew that he couldn't make up the gap, but instead of slowing, I pushed hard through the finish. My second mile was 5:29, giving me a total time of 10:48. I was second in my age group of 30-39 and 4th overall and clocked an official personal record at the 2 mile distance. I had hit similar times to date, but they were in the first two miles of 5k races.

PLACE NAME AGE TIME
==============================
01 David Riddle, 27 Time = 9:46
02 Josh Whitehead, 30 Time = 10:24
03 Blaise Binns, 16 Time = 10:31
04 Eric Charette, 33 Time = 10:48
05 Jon Krichev, 32 Time = 10:53
06 Kevin Betts, 31 Time = 10:53
07 Trip Richert, 17 Time = 10:58
08 George Dewitt, 50 Time = 10:59
09 Phillip Justin Holl, 18 Time = 11:06
10 Donald Bowman, 41 Time = 11:15

So it was 2:11 pm and I had maybe 20 minutes to recover and prepare to run all out again. I can barely type the words without laughing hysterically. Given that it was a little cold, I put on a long sleeve shirt to stay warm and jogged a little to shake out my legs. Luckily, the 4 mile race started a little late, so I had 24 minutes to rest before starting again. That is the great trick of the Winter Winds; race hard in the 2, have more time to rest before the 4; or race easy in the 2 and have less time to rest before the 4, but have fresher legs.

In sticking with my selection of 'D' from above, I started the 4 mile race in the top 10 by the time we Blevins. It was obvious that Lucas (Sieb) was going for the win and early on, it looked like no one would challenge him. It felt like we were running too easy by the top of the first hill, so I decided to make a move on the long down hill. It turns out our first 1/2 mile was 2:57, proving that it was far too slow. The next 1/2 mile was much faster, at 2:43, putting me at 5:40 for the first mile. I was again running in 4th place. I ran the second mile strong in 5:38 and was feeling decent. That is about when the bear jumped on my back. I held onto 4th until Briar Hollow, when George proved to be too strong and I could not hold him off anymore. I told him to take the inside on a corner and then he was gone. Doubling back through the field, I am sure that I looked like I was struggling, because I was. My 3rd mile was 5:52.

John was running stride for stride with me through the eastern part of the course. On the slight uphills, he would close the gap and then I would surge on the downhills putting some space between us. This went on for 3/4 of a mile, back and forth. Finally back on Blevins, I just didn't have another push. We were running mid 5 pace and with the lack of speed work over the past 10 weeks, I just didn't have anything left. John was with me and I told him that I just didn't have anything left and let him go past. This actually proved to be a motivator, as I then stayed with him. I tried to make another move before coming back into the school parking lot, but he was surging too. We ran the last mile in 5:39. If not for slowing in the 3rd mile, this would have been a pretty good race.

I finished at 22:49 in 6th place and 2nd in M30-34. This was pretty far off my PR (22:01 in the first 4 miles at Dam Bridge 10k in Nov 08) but I am fairly satisfied given the conditions, the amount of work I had done leading into this race for training and the hard 2 mile race less than 30 minutes before the start of the 4 mile.

The one thing that stands out to me about this set of races was that i had to work really hard during the race to hit these times. They are somewhat inline with my race times from last fall when I was in peak condition, but I just had to work harder to hit them. That tells me that by April when I am in top short distance race shape again, that if I put forth this hard of an effort again, I should be able to race better than last year.

Oh, and by the way, David (Riddle) caught Lucas after running a 'slow' first mile. David took top honors in both races.


PLACE NAME AGE TIME
==============================
01 David Riddle, 27 Time = 20:42 5:11
02 Lucas Sieb, 16 Time = 20:48 5:12
03 George Dewitt, 50 Time = 22:39 5:40
04 Trey Broadway, 17 Time = 22:42 5:41
05 Jon Krichev, 32 Time = 22:45 5:42
06 Eric Charette, 33 Time = 22:49 5:43
07 Donald Bowman, 41 Time = 22:58 5:45
08 David Purinton, 41 Time = 23:05 5:47
09 Greg Reynolds, 26 Time = 23:25 5:52
10 Stephen Baker, 27 Time = 23:34 5:54