Hot Chocolate 15k

Anna Lisa shot me a line several months ago about the Hot Chocolate 15k, mentioning that the swag was pretty extraordinary. I admit that a fleece and hat certainly made it worth considering, but more than anything the relatively unusual 15k distance and the chance to run an inaugural event made it compelling. Like most civilized folk, I had been planning to take some time off after the Chicago Marathon and a 15k three weeks later was hardly a break.

A couple of things made this seem pretty doable. First, for the month prior to the Marathon, my training pace had been pretty steadily around 8 min miles which is up about a minute over the past year. As I mentioned, I went into the Marathon thinking that this could be my M pace (it was not). Although I had trouble going down stairs for about three days after the marathon, I was back to 2500 yd swim workout by Tuesday at noon and I managed to get some good miles in that week. Last weekend I went out for a 12 miler at an 'easy' pace and when I looked at my splits at home, I had averaged a 7:35 mile for the whole run. The Marathon had been a bit of a disaster, but left me at a higher level of conditioning and not as fatigued as expected.

Add to this that I have been really pumped about my performance at the Athens Sister City 5k where I ran a 20:40 5k the day after a 22-mile training run. I did not expect the Marathon to tell me much about what my performance could have been, so I have been wanting to have a reasonably well-rested race to find out where things stood. Based on some calculations from McMillan and others, I figured that with a little mental toughness, I could manage a 7:02 mile for the whole race and maybe find a little extra in the tank at the end. Still, when the email before the race indicated that we could switch events if we wanted to, I very nearly opted for the 5k just to make sure I could run the race I wanted.

OK, too-long preamble; here is the race report.

Lined up about 10 minutes before the gun. Had all-but-one satellite in view on the Garmin and I was almost the first up which I did not want, but it was unclear who would be running 7-minute miles so I pulled back a bit before the start and probably pushed out in with the top 25. Needless to say, the pace was a bit too quick and I knew it right away. Backed off quickly and wound up hitting mile 1 at about 6:46 which I thought was completely insane. Garmin was off by 0.05 already at mile 1 which seemed crazy since I had a better first mile result in downtown Chicago. I let myself back off a bit with the intent to drop to 7:15 and recover for a mile to get my average back on. I got passed by a number of folk, including a woman in a blue shirt who I figured was running 7s. I could not quite hold her pace, but kept her within view and just ran what I thought seemed reasonable. By mile 4, Garmin was reporting that I was losing ground on my goal, running closer to 7:12s. I refocussed and decided to commit my mental energy to the 7 pace. Still getting passed in that stretch by a few folks and I could not find enough to keep up with them. At mile 5 I checked time on my watch and realized that I was closer to 7s than I had thought---I was in fact running slightly better than 7s. The stress of not hitting my own pace left and I opened up a bit. By mile 6 I was reeling in a few people that had passed me along the way. By mile 8, I realized that I was about 90 seconds under pace and still pulling in a few folk. The woman in blue was still pretty far ahead, but in sight and I decided to catch her AND see if I could open the pace up a bit to get in around the 63 mark. During Mile 8 I started picking up most of the people that had passed me along the way, including a guy that would re-pass me every time I went past until my relentlessness ultimately broke him. Finally, there was a tight turn which took us up the slightest little hill and across some grass and the bump seemed to crush the spirit of about a dozen folk in front of me while I was going to the arms and opening up. Somewhere in that mile some guy who looked like a coach hollered at me to 'just go fishing' and pull in the next group. I did and caught the woman in blue and several others by the time I hit the 9 mark. The last .3 was long but I kept it going, getting passed at the end by a woman who I had been in contention with for most of the race (she won her 45-49 F division, so no shame on my part---plus I caught her hocking a very respectable loogi around mile 6 which earned her my full respect). Hit the mat at 1:03:30.

Tired at the end, but not in the way I was after the Marathon or Accenture---which makes me think that I still had more in the tank. Moreover, I have had a busy day subsequently and I have felt shockingly fresh which further suggests that I had more to give. That's always a bit frustrating, but gotta love a great run and a pace that would have given me a PR at both 8k and 10k distances. The final average was a 6:49 mile which was 13 seconds per mile faster than planned and the same pace I ran for the Shammy six months ago---and I was totally fired up after that race. I think I have a 32:30 in me for an 8k right now and with a little speedwork I might get below the 32 mark by the 2009 Shammy.

Anyway very fun race. One gripe: so the 5k folk had pretty much all finished by the time the 15k was done and the lines to get into the food tent were ridiculous. Just a banana at the finish, that's all I ask. I ended up just grabbing three bottles of water and drinking one with some endurox powder I had brought along, skipping the chocolate ridiculousness entirely. Clearly the chocolate was a big draw for the ladies---we had 474 men out of 1515 in the 15k, meaning that women outnumbered us 2:1. Anna Lisa was clearly looking out farther than the fleece when she pointed out this race's swag.