On Saturday, October 9th, Ross and I both ran in the annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k in Oklahoma City. The race begins and ends by the ballpark in Bricktown, looping thru downtown OKC. I was told by a coworker who also runs that it's one of the biggest 5k's in the area every year, and after attending I believe him. In fact, Sunday's paper said they had over 18,000 participants this year! (That's for the 5k and the 1-mile walk/run that starts concurrently).
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| Big pink Limo parked on Reno. |
Peggy and I got there around 7:30 and it was already extremely crowded and difficult to find parking. As it neared 8:00, Reno, the street the race started on became seriously packed with runners and walkers. Additionally, on the North side of the street by the ballpark it was a packed mass of humanity. Luckily I was on the South side of the street where you could still maneuver thru the crowd.
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| Untangling my headphones as I begin to get ready. |
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| Looking toward the starting line. |
They had signs in the starting area for people to gather based on their projected pace for the race. I worked my way in between the 8 minute mile and 9 minute mile signs. As the start neared, I began inching a bit more toward the 8 minute mile area. The gun went off and the crowd of runners began to move. I was nearer to the starting line here than I was at the Midnight Streak 5k back in August so it was probably only about 15 seconds or so after the gun when I crossed the starting line.
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| Peggy shot this right before the start. You can't really get a perspective on the size of the crowd from this shot. |
It felt like a slow pace in the crowd I was in so I began working my way toward the side of the pack where you can begin passing people. When I finally got a little room around me I found I was running faster than I intended (of course!) with my Garmin showing my pace to be near 7:30. I tried to slowed down some, but also felt the need to keep up with the runners around me...so I didn't really slow down as much as I wanted to.
Despite the quick pace I wasn't having too much trouble keeping it up. As we headed up Robinson I glanced down at my Garmin and saw we were nearing the 1 mile mark. I wanted to hit the lap counter on the Garmin at each mile so I could see what my splits were later. At 1 mile I hit the lap counter then looked up to see a course marker (a slender plastic barrier that stood about 3 and a half to 4 feet high) right in front of me! I didn't have any time to dodge it and put my hands out as I collided with it. I'm happy to report I took the course marker out rather than vice-versa. I definitely felt foolish though!
The course was mostly gently uphill for the first half, hitting 13th street at it's northernmost point before turning back south down Broadway and a gentle downhill slope. Toward the end of the second mile I was beginning to feel the effects of the pace I was keeping, but about that time a couple of my best running songs came up on my iPod back to back. That helped me keep going and avoid slowing down. At Broadway and 4th, the course turned East on 4th and went up the steepest part of the course by far. This was with about a half mile or so left. It went up the hill for probably about a quarter mile. I consciously slowed it going up the hill (to about an 8:30 pace) so I would hopefully have something left coming down the stretch.
At the top of the hill the course turned back South on Walnut (I think) heading to the ballpark and the finish. It went down a steep hill at this point. It was now easier to pick up the pace some, but I had to stay back on my heels a bit too because it was so steep. I was also really starting to run out of gas now. The finish line was in sight and people were turning their kick on and passing me. I wanted to do the same but didn't feel I had much left. Finally with about a hundred yards left I gave the best kick I could and made it to the finish.
According to my Garmin, my time was 25:49...almost 10 seconds faster than my time at the Midnight Streak. I spotted Peggy waiting just a bit past the finish and moved over to talk to her. As we talked, Ross came trotting up just 15 or so seconds behind me. I was ready to gloat that I actually beat him, but he told us that he waited too long to go to the starting area and got stuck in the crowd and ended up starting near the back of the pack behind huge number of 1-mile walkers. He said it took him about a half mile to get around all of them and he used a huge amount of energy doing so. Talking to him later, he said he clocked his time at 24:50, so he actually ran it about a minute faster than I did. His starting gun time was about 10 or 15 seconds slower than mine—also pretty good considering I started near the front of the pack and Ross started near the back.
When it was all said and done, the Hansen brothers finished 7th and 8th in the men's 50–54 age group—out of almost 50. Not too bad! Finally, as mentioned above, I did win my confrontation with the course marker, but it managed to get its own licks in on me.
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| RJay got a boo boo. |
