CVS Downtown 5k

Time: 94:09
Distance: 12.51 miles

Shakeout: 13:51 for 1.65 miles
W/u: 22:00 for 2.75 miles
Race: 15:00 (<-- results)
C/d: 27:59 for 3.27 and 15:19 for 1.74

Race day morning started up on College Hill with a short run to shake out the legs. I proceeded to shower up and walk down the hill several hours before the race. A quick stop was made to Starbucks for some coffee and then I walked over to the Capitol. I'm glad that I got to the race early because it gave me a chance to see former Brown coach Bob Rothenberg and his wife Anne. They were volunteering at the race because they are quite possibly the most well connected couple in the RI running community.

There was still much time to spare but luckily I saw Stephanie Pezzullo (Pezz) beforehand and we hung out in the grass field. Tanya showed up a bit later with Sara Hall (Bei), Jenn Rhines (three time Olympian), and a few other elite women (those with actual shoe company contracts). It was cool seeing the elite men hang around the start of the race gearing up for what is more or less a low key race.

I had two goals on the day which were to run in the 14:30s and qualify for the Ivy League Ekiden trip to Japan. Prior to the race the team coach, Jack Fultz, pre-selected five athletes (Steve Sundell [Columbia], Michael Maag [Princeton], Ben True [Dartmouth], David Nightingale [Princeton], Thomas Morgan [University of Kentucky]). You might be thinking Kentucky, that's not an Ivy League school. Well, it's known as the Ivy League of the south, or so I'm told.

Anyway, those five runners were already on the team and four of us were racing (Lucas Meyer [Yale], Zac Hine [Cornell], Murat Kayali [Yale], myself) in Providence. The hitch in this whole thing is that only eight guys make the team. Six athletes run in the ekiden (Japanese relay race) and two are alternates who run a 5k on the track. Thus, I had to beat one runner on the day.

The race started and I was hoping to go through the mile in 4:35-4:40, but I came through a little slow in 4:42. It was cool hearing the three clap cheer of my former Brown teammates. Watch the video below and you can see what I'm talking about.

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

I was just off the pace of a big group I should have been up with. The leaders only ran 4:30 for the first mile which meant my positioning was fine, just a little slow as a result. I hoped to remain focused over the next mile and catch some of the guys who went out to fast. I was running behind Christian Hesch and an older dude in a green jersey (there is some debate as to whether the runner was Sean Wade. He doesn't show up in the results, but I'm almost positive that it was Wade). Going through the second mile mark I think it read 8:24 which was clearly wrong. Hopefully it was 9:24 and just a minute off but who knows at this point.

I passed Hesch in the next section and reeled in a couple of more guys. With about half a mile to go old guy green took off and I thought I was going to lose to him. Meagan's good friend, Gabe Rodriguez, said I better not lose to Sean Wade because he's 41 years young, and at this point I was certain this was Wade. Gabe would have given me endless shit if I lost to a masters athlete. Luckily, I saved enough for the final hill which is about 300 meters from the finish. Half way up the hill Wade was gassed and I rolled past him, but was getting rolled on by two other guys making moves. Part way up the hill is the 3 mile mark (I think 14:25) and then it flattens out to the finish. I didn't think I was slowing that much, roughly to a 5 min pace, because I was still catching people. I crossed the line right at 15 minutes.

At no point during the race did I feel overly strained or lock up. I'm not sure why I ran 30 seconds slower than what I had hoped. My legs felt good and the lungs handled the effort fine. Maybe it's because I haven't gone to the well during a race effort in quite some time and I've forgotten to accept a high level of pain. Two years ago when I ran 14:44, I had run a 5k in 14:54 a couple of weeks prior. I would like to think that I'm in the same if not better shape than two years ago. Regardless, I achieved my second goal of qualifying for the trip to Japan. So I've got that going for me...which is nice.

Lucas and Zac ran great times today which you can find in the results up top. Tanya didn't have the best race, but Pezz almost broke 17 minutes.