My cardio might be a little better than it is currently if I ran regularly. As it is, I tend to only do two 5K's per year: one during the summer, with the other in the fall for my friend Carmen. Carmen was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma over a decade ago and has been battling cancer ever since. Ten years ago, she began running in the MMRF 5K in Philadelphia, along with a small group of friends and family. Eventually that group expanded to include friends from her job. This larger group would start a tradition of completing the race and then heading over to the IHOP on City Ave. Team Pancake was born.
There have been changes over the years. The date of the run has gotten later and later over the years, with this year's run taking place in mid-November. IHOP is no more, having given way to Flap Jack's, which then became the Perkins that we visited after this year's race. The biggest transformation for me has been my change in attire. Jenn's company, Aberdeen Asset Management, does a ton of charity work. Every year, I join 19 other folks from Aberdeen in doing the Plane Pull competition down at the Philadelphia airport. The Plane Pull is to raise money for Ronald McDonald House and no one has raised more money the last two years than the generous folks at Aberdeen. A few years ago, I asked Jenn if she could pass an e-mail along to her co-workers about the MMRF run and the response was both immediate and overwhelming. Feeling the need to honor them, I began wearing my Aberdeen soccer jersey (I used to be the goalie for the company's team) and a sport kilt as my outfit for the MMRF run, no matter the weather. You can probably see why the later start date each year has become a concern of mine!
While the fundraising aspect of this event has gone well for me over the years, my performance in the actual race has left a lot to be desired. You can't run 3 miles every 6 months and expect to finish with a fast time. I have gotten to the point now where I don't care about a fast time, per se, but rather my goal is to make it the entire 3+ miles without falling apart. Since I've been suffering injuries more regularly than Derrick Rose recently, not to mention struggling with my cardio, I did not have high hopes for this year's edition.
Carmen and the majority of Team Pancake tend to walk most of the 5K, although they will jog parts of it, including the last stretch into the finish line. There are only 3 members of Team Pancake that run the race regularly:
- Tommy, a solid runner in his early 40's
- Jimbo, a solid runner in his early 50's
- Me, a guy in a kilt routinely beat by participants in their 60's
Me, Jimbo, and Tommy after the race
Tommy and Jimbo battle it out most years to see who can run faster, with Jimbo collecting several medals due to the age group he is in. I haven't come close to beating either of them over the years, although I do remember trying to stay with them the first year I participated. Now I don't even line up with them at the start. Those two had made their way up near the front of the starting pack, while I was back chatting with Carmen and some of the other members of Team Pancake, back where the walkers were supposed to gather. It doesn't really matter these days since everything is chip timed, but starting back that far does require a lot of weaving around people, especially in the first mile.
There is always some confusion at the beginning of this race since there is no horn or gun to indicate the race has started. The folks in the back see the herd begin funneling through the starting gate and that's how you know it's time to run. This isn't a huge race (about 500 participants, runners and walkers combined), but it can take a while to get to the starting line, especially when a lot of walkers line up near the front. After the race, I found out it took me 1:08 to get to the starting line from the official start of the race. Once again, let's be thankful for chip timing.
After weaving through a lot of walkers and huggers (people were actually standing in front of the starting line hugging one another as the racers tried to get by), I was finally able to get running. Tommy and Jimbo were nowhere in sight. I tried to stay to the outside as I continued to go by lots of walkers or walkers/joggers during the first half mile. I wasn't wearing a watch this year, so I didn't have a way of determining whether I was going too fast or too slow other than what my body was telling me. I felt like I was going fast, but that may have been because I was passing so many people early on. I closed in on the mile marker, except I never saw it along the course. Tommy later told me it was there, but I hadn't seen it as I was still bunched up among a lot of people.
Though I hadn't seen the one mile marker, it was at about that point that I settled into the run. The runners were more spread out and I was starting to pick out which runners were running about the same pace as me. I had seen a taller guy who started out back where I had and had followed a similar zig-zag pattern through the field during the first mile. He was about 50 meters ahead of me and seemed like a good candidate in terms of who I should try and run with over the last two miles or so. Just as I began zeroing in on him, I heard footsteps. After staying to the left for over a mile in order to pass slower runners on the right, I was now being passed on my left. The perpetrator was a woman about a foot shorter than me who had a nice gliding stride as she went past. She didn't appear to be laboring at all as she went by. I got the impression that she was going to keep that same pace from the moment she passed me all the way until she reached the finish line. This was who I needed to go with.
I knew that was easier said than done. Cline is always telling me to open up my stride when I begin slowing up during WODs, yet I struggle to do it. At the same time, I hadn't done a bunch of wall balls, box jumps, or squat cleans prior to this run, so maybe my legs would be a little more accommodating this morning. I focused on lengthening my stride and staying within range of my new target. And it worked. I wasn't feeling any resistance from my legs due to the longer stride I was now employing. The main concern would be my cardio. Could I keep my breathing steady for nearly two miles?
As the lady in front of me passed runners on the left one by one, I followed suit. Soon we were approaching the two mile marker and this time I could see the sign. But there was something else near that sign up ahead: Jimbo. At first I wasn't sure it was him because I didn't remember him wearing earbuds prior to the race, but as I got closer and closer to him, I became certain of who it was. Part of me was dreading the idea that he might pick it up and race me over the last mile if he saw that I caught up to him. I was very happy with how things had gone over the first two miles. I had no idea what my time was, but I had picked things up a bit during the second mile and I wasn't gasping for air or running on sore legs. I felt like I could make it the rest of the way at the pace I was going. As I came up to the left of Jimbo, I didn't say anything and stayed at the same exact pace I had been going. It didn't seem like he was picking up his pace to go with me. That was a relief.
With a little over a half mile to go, you run around a loop before coming to the last stretch into the finish. You can actually see the finish as you go into the loop, so it provides some extra motivation to the runners as you know you're almost done. I'm not sure whether I was starting to slow or whether the lady I had been tracking was inspired by the sight of the finish, but I noticed she was beginning to widen her lead on me. Open up that stride some more, Dave! My legs cooperated yet again. I picked up my speed and closed the gap to what it had been since early on in the second mile. My breathing was not extremely rapid and I had been able to pick up the pace twice during this run, giving me hope that I could find one more burst of energy during the final straightaway.
I used to sprint at the end of events like this, but I don't do that anymore. Will I pick up my pace? Sure. But not too long ago, I had a dude with a stroller stick his kid in front of me as he sprinted to the finish in a local 5K. He risked injuring me and his small child to finish one spot higher and it wasn't like they were giving away prizes to the people finishing as far back as we were. From that point on, I decided I wasn't being "that guy", the one who was desperate to pass people in the final strides of the race. So if I was going to pass the lady I had been stalking for two miles, I would need to do it well before the finish. It was clear that she wasn't going to make it easy, picking it up as we closed in on the final tenth of a mile. But I had enough left in my lungs to complement the energy still remaining in my legs. After we both passed 3-4 people on the straightaway, I finally got past her. I caught one more person before crossing under the finish line. The timer showed nearly 28 minutes, but my chip time would be 26:48. That was a 55 second improvement on my time from the 5K I ran with Jill C, and I felt much better at the end of this run than I had when I completed that event. Maybe my cardio wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.
Tommy had finished about a minute and a half in front of me, while I had beaten Jimbo by a little over two minutes. More importantly, Team Pancake had raised $3,260 for MMRF and for Carmen. If you'd like to learn a little more about Carmen's successful fight against Multiple Myeloma, you can watch a short video she made here.
After everyone had finished, we wrapped things up with breakfast at Perkins. Another 5K in a kilt was in the books. I was going to rest up my neck and shoulders with another day off on Sunday before trying to get back into things at the gym on Monday night.
Monday preview: A nice mix of a bunch of different movements. Hopefully I can make it through the workout pain-free!
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