I had a clean, uneventful winter training wise. I got my miles in, with no injuries and no health related setbacks. I successfully completed 8 straight weeks of stride, tempo and ladder work as planned. So feeling good, feeling confident heading into the seasons first race. This will also be my last season running in the 50's age group as one of the old guys at 59. Next year I graduate to the 60's age group as one of the youngsters.
The Get Lucky is basically a "party theme/costume" race for many of the participants and the race distance (7k) is fairly non-standard as races go. But I really like this race for several reasons. First, the course is fair and relatively fast. There are two hill climbs, but not killer climbs. The last mile is a good finishing mile. Flat to slightly downhill. The worst part of the course is that the second mile is run on cobblestones. I don't like the cobblestones, so I try to run that section on the cement gutter near the curb. The other reason I like this race is the location. Downtown Minneapolis is more race friendly than Downtown St Paul with regard to parking locations near the start of a race.
The St. Patrick's Day theme brings out thousands of casual runners looking for a social event and a good time. But there are about 500 runners who actually run this race competitively. But it's the kind of race that doesn't attract any of the top runners around the state. It's important to start near the front, or you will find yourself stuck behind thousands of people dressed in varying degrees of green costume, who may have already used their free drink coupon before the start of the race. The race is chip timed for each runner, but failing to start near the front will be be a severe handicap, trying to fight through a never ending sea of slower runners who are simply there to have a good time. Don't get me wrong. The race participants are very nice, friendly people. They just have a different objective in mind for this race, which they are certainly entitled to. This is obviously why the race draws thousands of people each year.
Anyway, my race started out just fine. I completed the first two miles right on my 6:20/mile target pace and experienced no issues through the cobblestone section in mile two. However during the third mile I suffered a sudden and severe left calf strain, which immediately put me on the defensive. I shortened my stride out of necessity, while quickly evaluating how serious the injury was and how hard I could push the rest of the way without risking further damage. The pain was intense through mile three and I lost about 20 seconds to my per mile pace. By the time I got to mile four, the pain had subsided to a degree, or I was just getting used to the discomfort. I gave it my best effort, but was unable to recapture my original race pace again.
I finished with a time of 28:29, which is my slowest time among the 4 Get Lucky races I've now run. My best time (in 2014) was 51 seconds faster (27:38) and I haven't run slower that 28 minutes flat until today. I'm disappointed with my time, because I felt like I wasted a great opportunity to run a strong race on a beautiful, late winter day. I felt like I was in a position to challenge my best time in this race. But I realize the injury lead to my demise and I ran as well as I could considering the unexpected setback during the race.
I finished in 14th place overall among 6,045 finishers and 1st in my age group of 198 finishers. My next race is the Hot Chocolate 5k in Minneapolis on April 16th. This is another large participant event with a "fun" theme behind it. It's a relatively new race that fit my race calendar both from a timing standpoint as well as race distance I wanted to run next. Hopefully my calf strain will heal quickly and not bother me as the year progresses.
Race Results:
http://www.mtecresults.com/runner/show?rid=10760&race=3867
