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.

Today's weather update

They keep lowering the temps for Sunday. Consensus now is upper 60s for a high and mid to upper 40s for the low. Also, channel 5 now has a 30% chance of rain like the Weather Channel app. No screenshots today. iPhoto didn't want to download them from my iPod and I didn't feel like fighting with it.

Temps sound pretty good, but I really hope it doesn't rain.

I didn't post last week but I went on my longest run (all by myself) on Wednesday. I thought I would go for running for 2 hours figuring that would be a relatively good indicator of how I would feel during the race. We have mentioned, to get mileage in here one has to travel across most of the town so I started from our house and went up and down some roads towards the actual town. I had a point that I originally thought that I would turn and head towards home but when I got there I thought, "I am not too far from the high school. I could just finish there and ride home with the kids". So I barreled on, feeling okay other than way too many "nature" needs.

I got to the high school at about 1:15, a bit shorter than 2 hours. I didn't see the kids around the track and was debating what I should do. Then I saw Mason running with his group and asked when he was going to get done. His coach said ~45 minutes. Well, there was my 2 hours. I took off again but decided I would just go about 30 more minutes. Oh my gosh, the first 15 were okay but my calves were absolutely killing me the last 15. I was to the point of just pushing my feet forward. Funny though, I got back to the high school and I wasn't quite to 1:45 so I circled around the parking lot until my watch hit that. Then I was happy to stop. End result? 10.84 miles!!! Yay, that made me happy.

Then yesterday, Curtis and I went out for a mid to maybe a bit long run again. This time I was aiming for 1:30 and made it to 1:24. We were pooped but got just over 9 miles. So, I am trained as I am going to get. Hopefully good enough :)

The weather forecast is making me happy. Curtis is very excited to pack shorts!! See you all in a couple of days!

~Sherry

ps: Syd ran a 6:17 mile at her meet on Saturday!! Mason ran his 2 mile in 11:07. Not his best but pretty good if you ask me.

Forecast update

Definitely some discrepancy between forecasts here.

Weather app forecast.

Weather Channel app forecast.

Neither one is bad...other than the rain chances in the Weather Channel app's forecast. Channel 5's forecast this morning was pretty much the same as the Weather app's forecast.

Weather forecast

Thought I'd post some daily forecasts for the upcoming weekend. We did finally get some way overdue rain here in central Oklahoma over the weekend. Had a nice steady drizzle all day yesterday. For the non-Oklahoma residents, we're in the throws of what is being termed an extreme drought, and have had almost no rain this year, so anything at this point is good for us.

Here's the pertinent portion of the Weather Channel app's 10-day forecast from this morning:

Early forecast

Of course they're all kind of rough this far out. Channel 5's forecast this morning said 72/45 for Sunday's highs and lows...a bit cooler than this forecast. Either way would be pretty good though, since it would most likely still be in the 60s by the time we all finished running.

Last "long" long run in the books

Ross and I met at Lake Hefner Saturday morning bright and early to do a last long run a couple of weeks before the marathon. We had a pretty cool morning temp, down near 40 and while it was nowhere near as windy as Friday, there was still a stiff wind blowing off the lake. We had hoped Sue would be able to run with us, but she had to work late Friday night and we met at the lake at 7 AM so she took a pass on it.

This was the first time I've run at Hefner. Ross had run there one time previously.  We both thought it was 11 miles around the lake which we thought would be a good long run for the 13 miles of the half, but it ended up being just under nine and a half miles according to my GPS watch. Ross and I ended up never putting our headphones on and just talked for the entire run. Besides some good company, this probably kept our pace a bit slower than it would have been if we'd been listening to music instead of talking. Not a bad thing in my mind since I always read you should keep the pace on your long runs slower than your normal pace, and I usually have a difficult time doing that.

We ran all the way to the golf course which was about half way around from where we started. We stopped at the golf course for about 5 minutes for a drink and a nature break, then continued on our way for the second half, at a bit quicker pace than we had run the first half. Finished the whole thing in a bit under an hour and a half then sat on the curb by our cars and shared an orange while recovering for a few minutes before heading home.

I'll be cutting back a bit for the next couple of weeks to let my body rest up. Probably do a couple of 4 milers during the week this week and maybe do a little 6 mile long run next weekend.

It's almost here! I'm excited to see everyone and to run the race too!

We Are Family!!

Yay for Sue! In fact yay for everyone. I did ~7.4 the other day by myself. The distance wasn't that remarkable, the "by myself" is. It is easy for me to talk myself into quitting when I am by myself especially if the weather isn't my idea of ideal. But, alas, I complain too much about weather.

Curtis & I were talking that we are a bit concerned about how we will do. He probably moreso than me. I am thinking that I will focus on the family event since I don't think that I am particularly "trained". Hopefully we can try a long run this week though so I can at least have done one. Curt has done a couple. Oh, by the way, he is doing the 1/2 with the rest of us.

I am excited to see everyone and am really hoping that it is sunny and warm while we are there :D

~Sherry