Clay and Lisa Burnett

So, if you've followed the blog, you should be thinking, "Clay just ran a 5 mile tempo run at sub 5:30 pace... but he ran a 10k RACE at 5:44 pace in a field filled with talent, how does that work?"

Well sometimes it just goes like that, and sometimes you have to let the race really sink in before you are able to dig in and find any positives. Before I get into my, now positive, interpretation of the race... I'll take you through what really happened.

Lisa and I jogged the course on Friday evening, realizing we were in for a real doozy, the hills had hills. On race day, we woke up a little later than normal, we had an abnormal breakfast an then we were sedentary for a couple hours. We were not in rhythm. We left for the race realizing that we needed to further our nourishment or pay dearly during the race (races were at 12:45 and 1:30, no so convenient), so we ate crunchy peanut butter rolled up in crappy wheat bread. We arrived at the scene and Lisa promptly began her warm up alone, again not usual. Once finished, we jogged to the line, finding her spot among a sea of ready runners. The gun went off and Lisa was part of the sea of fancy schmancy uniforms of club teams, sponsored athletes and so on... she wore her OSU practice jersey with big 25 on the back.

She was first to the top of the first hill. Great Lisa. I got that feeling that you get when you're at a horse race and you bet on the one that is leading at the first turn, ugh. She held her own for a while, crossing the mile at 5:30, wayy to fast. Then it turned sour. Realizing that she had gone out far too hard, she hit the brakes, attempting to steady the pace. Anyone who has run in a high stakes cross country race before knows that this can be a tragic mistake. Runners passed her, continuously, for a long time. The mental drain of leading the race then watching 128 runners pass by was far too much, especially in her first cross country race ever. It sounds pretty bad, however, she did finish in 22:59 on the hardest course most competitors had ever seen. She was down about it, and she did her best to hide it, but then it was my turn.

I had a very scattered warm up. I basically ran around snapping shots of Lisa and jogging when I could, not ideal. I finally found my team, Second Sole Rocky River and then realized I had no clue as to how fit these guys were, so I had no real indicator in the race. I knew that Fred Kieser was typically about 20 seconds per mile faster than me in a 5k, so I decided to use that as my standard. The gun went off, we ran. I found that I had to stay with Fred, for if I let him go by 20 seconds (even 5 seconds) I would never see him again... the race was brimming with talent and it was painfully apparent. I hit the mile at 5:00, maybe a tad slow for a 5k, but surely far too fast to a 10k. Can you hear the screech? I damn near pulled the parking brake at full speed. Killer mistake. I knew I had burnt up too much energy in that first mile, so I backed it off, wayyy off. I hit the two mile at 10:30 (5:30 2nd mile) while watching the race pass me by. The race was a three loop course, the first loop had me beat. I crossed the 3 mile at 16:20, which was really about where I wanted to be, but I got there in the wrong way. At this point I just held on and tried to hold my own with nearby runners. The goal quickly turned into finishing the race and finishing strong enough in the last quarter not to get passed in front of the crowd. The next 3 miles were all at 6:00 pace, yuck. I was able to finish in a sprint beating out three nearby runners. I felt pretty negative during the race and post-race, but it was somewhat cool to have run in such a big event.

At first I looked back and didn't find any positives about the race as a whole, but I did tell myself that I would never again become so negative during a race of any distance.

Today's 5 mile tempo run was the first reward from the 10k. The 10k did somehow instill in me that I could handle a longer distance, even if not all that well. I used to get mentally raked in 5k races, so somewhere in my head I know I could conquer a 10k at a solid pace. Most of all, the race helped me drive out the negative and stay positive during a fairly hard tempo run, even if it was just for revenge against it!