Ventura County Corporate Games

The best thing about not racing for six months has been not falling behind on these blog race reports.

Since my last race, back in October, my running has looked like this:

10 weeks: Achilles injury
7 weeks: Working way back into shape
4 weeks: Knee injury
4 weeks: Working way back into shape

I'm now one of those guys who runs with a band around his knee, and my Achilles still isn't quite right, but I'm running, and that's all that matters.

I typically wouldn't have allowed myself to race so soon after restarting my training, but I had committed to represent my company at the Ventura County Corporate games (kind of like the Olympics for the county, if the Olympics were a bunch of regular people who trained for their event a couple of times a month).


A month before the race, I'd started doing one modest workout a week, plus some strides, in preparation. I'd been surprised how well my legs responded to this load after the injury, but I was constantly battling soreness in my knee, and two days before the race I still wasn't sure if it was worth risking further injury by competing.

The day of the race finally arrived, and too many people at work knew about the race for me to back out, so I sucked it up and made the trip to Ventura with a colleague for the big event. I checked out a map when I arrived and discovered the course was officially listed 5.17K, despite the race website and advertising calling it a 5K. 5.17K?? My training had been all wrong! In reality, this had no impact on how I planned to approach the race. Another 170 meters would be nothing, right? It made me wonder at what point would added distance cause me to change my pacing/approach? 400 meters? More? Something for you guys to ponder on your next long run.

The course makes two loops around a park, starting and ending in the same spot. I got a sense of the level of seriousness of the other competitors when I realized that maybe 20 or 30 of the 350 racers were doing warm-ups, while the rest socialized. This was reinforced when I returned from my warm-up to a bunch of open-mouthed stares from my teammates who were in awe that I'd run a whole lap of the course prior to the race. This would be interesting...

I walked to the start with a teammate who said she'd start with me and see how long she'd be able to hang in there. I didn't have the heart to tell her how things would go down, so I agreed, and we walked toward the front of the starting corral together. I had a dilemma - should I go straight to the first row and put her in position to get stampeded by the faster runners behind her, or do I sacrifice my own start and keep her out of harm's way? Being the gentleman that I am, I chose the latter. We were in maybe the seventh row, which, on the bright side, gave me a chance to size up the group in front of me. I saw a few fit-looking guys, including one in a Navy singlet that I picked to be the top in the field. Sure enough, as the race started, he took off like a bolt, while I weaved my way through the couple dozen runners who started in front of me. Oh, and my colleague? I didn't even look back to see what happened to her. I can't even be sure I didn't elbow her out of the way myself when the siren sounded. So much for being a gentleman.

After a quarter-mile, I was in eighth place or so, already 5 seconds behind the leader, whose margin was growing with every step. I glanced at my watch and saw we were running sub-5 pace. Oops. I backed off to something I could maintain, even though I knew I'd be sacrificing any chance to challenge for the lead in the near future. After another 100 meters, I was in second place, the spicy opening a bit too hot for most of the crowd. I felt a presence on my shoulder and knew I had a barnacle. I was happy to oblige, as long as he didn't want more than a comfortable place to hang out.

I glanced back at some point and discovered that we were in a two-man battle for second; no one else was close in front of or behind us. We hit mile one in 5:22, and I felt smooth. My thought coming in to the race was that I'd be happy with 5:30 miles. Now, I was hoping that a 5:22 wouldn't cause the wheels to come off at the end. Time would tell.

Running with the pack as I finish my second lap.

We came through the end of the first lap in the same position we'd been since 500m into the race. The guy was still hanging strong. Meanwhile, the leader's gap had grown to more than 30 seconds. There would be no chance to catch him. We continued to run in tandem until we reached the second mile marker (5:19). He suddenly and unceremoniously detached, thanking me for the lift (really) and wishing me luck the rest of the way. So that was it? I was able to enjoy the solitude for another 100 meters before coming upon a throng of walkers and joggers taking up most of the path ahead for as far as I could see. It was the fabled back-of-the-packers, working their way around the course on their first lap. I thought about warning them of my approach, but that would've required shouting, "On your left!" in perpetuity. Instead, I dashed and darted every which way, like Barry Sanders (that is, Barry Sanders now, retired and a heavy-footed, not when he still played football) finding holes in a defense with 200 players on a very, very long field. Yes, I'm over-dramatizing things, but not by much. On the bright side, all of the weaving was a great distraction from my increasing fatigue. Before I knew it, my watch beeped for the third mile (5:17), and I figured I'd better start picking it up. I ran hard but still comfortably through the finish (final 0.2 at 4:43 pace) in 17:06.

The medal ceremony. See, just like the Olympics.

The Navy guy had beaten me by 15 seconds, but I took some solace in the fact that I'd cut his lead in half over the second lap. I was also pleased that I was able to negative split after being concerned that I'd started too quickly, and despite the traffic on lap 2. (Splits: Lap 1 - 8:38; Lap 2 - 8:28). Best of all, my knee, which tends to be sore for days if I so much as step too aggressively out of my car, felt after the race like nothing had ever been wrong. These injuries are mysterious.

Final Results: 2nd place overall, 17:06 for 5.17 K (5:18 pace; roughly equivalent to a 16:30 5K). The team also finished 2nd, scoring some key points for the county championship!

Now let's hope it's not too long before I have to write another one of these things.