2011 Midnight Streak race report

This year's Midnight Streak fell on August 13th—Dad's birthday and the date of Tayler's wedding reception. Because of the wedding reception, Sherry and Thais were both in town that day and originally, they had both intended to run the race that night. Unfortunately, due to Thais' recently diagnosed melanoma, she wasn't able to run the race and Ross couldn't do it because the reception didn't shut down until 11:00. However Sue and Sherry were both able to participate this year.

We all attended the wedding reception and had a great time. It was a beautiful event and we all got to see some familiar faces we hadn't seen in a long time.

The proud father and new bride.

The Hansen siblings pose for a photo op.

A bit before 10, Sherry, Sue, Thais, Peggy and I all changed then headed out to the Fairgrounds for the race. We arrived around 10:30 so we didn't have long before they began gathering at the starting area.

Sherry and Sue discuss their race strategy before the start.

Showing off my great runner-body type.

Sue, Sherry and I headed to the start and then stood around and talked for a few minutes before I left them to line up in the 8 minute/mile starting block while they lined up in the 9 minute block. It was significantly cooler this year than last. We've had a record breaking summer heat-wise in Oklahoma this year, but we got a break the week of the race and the high that day was "only" in the 90's (vs. last year's 103). I didn't get to see the temp around race time, but I'd guess it was in the high 80s.

I was lined up to start probably about 5 minutes before the gun and I really felt good and energized as I waited. I bounced up and down on my toes in anticipation. In my previous 5k's I've had a strategy for how I would run the race, but for this one I really didn't. I intended to just go be feel and see how it turned out. Finally, as the start neared, a girl sang the national anthem and then they fired the starting gun. As I crossed the starting line I worked over to the side a bit so I could get around the crowd and hit a good pace.

The course was almost the same one as last year, but traveled in the opposite direction, leaving the Fairgrounds almost immediately and going down May Avenue for a stretch before turning back into the Fairgrounds. I settled in to an 8 minute-ish pace and really felt strong. I found myself behind a guy who was keeping that pace so I decided to follow him for a while. I stayed behind him until he began falling off that pace as we neared the first mile mark. I went past him and after the first mile I was still feeling strong. This was a good sign to me since an 8 minute mile tends to wear me down.

On the second mile the course goes down a road for probably a bit over a quarter mile then turns around and comes back the opposite direction on the same road. This is where they have water tables set up. I went ahead and downed a couple of cups of water on this stretch while trying to maintain my pace. After the turn around I tried to watch for Sue and Sherry in the line of runners going out on the road. It was difficult to see the oncoming runners though because of lights by the water tables shining in my eyes. Suddenly Sherry popped into view and she waved as she spotted me. A couple of hundred yards later I saw Sue but she didn't see me as she ran past.

In the last mile, the course had a loooong uphill stretch. The hill wasn't particularly steep, but it was definitely uphill and of course by this point you were starting to get tired. And did I mention this uphill stretch was really long? I consciously slowed my pace a bit as  I ran up the hill, trying to reserve some energy for the finish. About halfway up the hill I looked at my Garmin and saw my pace had slowed to a bit over 8:40/mile. I thought I had slowed too much and didn't want to keep that pace the rest of the way up the hill so I pushed myself to speed back up.

There was probably about a half mile left at this point and I was really beginning to wear down. I finally topped the hill and now had a good stretch of downhill. I was tired but really let myself fly down the hill hoping to make up any time I had lost going up the hill. Even doing that though, I saw a couple of runners I had passed going up the hill fly by me on the way down. When I reached the bottom there was a bit over a quarter mile left. It was getting difficult to push myself now. My chest was hurting and my body was screaming at me to stop. I had the feeling I was on pace for a PR though and kept telling myself I only had to keep this up a bit longer.

I finally saw the finish line ahead, but didn't want to start my kick too soon. I waited until I was about 150 yards away then gave it everything I had left and really managed a pretty good kick considering how tired I was. I hit the stop button on my GPS watch as I crossed the finish line, then spotted Peggy and Thais and nodded at them as I walked around a bit trying to catch my breath. I looked at my watch and it read 25:14. This would be a new PR (my previous 5k PR was 25:30), but I was a bit disappointed since I felt like I had run even faster than that.

I walked back to Thais and Peggy to watch for Sue and Sherry finish. As we waited I glanced at my watch again and it read 29-something. I realized then that when I hit the stop button at the finish I must not have got it pushed good and it had never stopped. Now I would have to wait until the times were posted to see what I finished in. Shortly, Sherry crossed the finish and came over to wait for Sue with us.

Sherry at the finish, probably glad she went on a
training run in the heat with me back in July!

About a minute later Sue finished and we decided to wait for them to post finish times before we left. As we waited, Sherry ran into a couple of people she knew from when she and her family still lived in Oklahoma! I thought that was curious since neither Sue nor I saw anyone we knew.

Sue, looking pretty good for just finishing 3 miles in the heat.

They posted times pretty quickly and we all looked to find our names. I found mine and saw I had finished in 24:49, 8th out of 38 in my age group. I was really happy about that since I had broke 25 minutes and beat my old PR by 40 seconds! Sherry finished in 28:12 and 7th out of 37 in her age group and Sue finished in 29:36 and 5th out of 35 in her age group. A great showing I thought as we all finished top ten in our age groups. With that, we headed back to our cars and headed home.

It was a fun race and I had a great time with my sisters. I was really glad they got to run in it with me. Maybe Ross can make it next year.