The Red Sea - Jingle Bell Santa Suit 5k Race Report

Almost 3000 Santas. That's a lot of jolly. And there we were, lined up waiting for the gun to go off. I looked back over the crowd, and as far as the eye could see were red hats and beards.

I thought this would just be a fun little event, something goofy to look back on as an outing with the little one, but the scale was bigger than I imagined. We arrived a couple of hours before the start, so I could get checked in and receive my complimentary suit. The quality was better than I expected, with a nice fleece, but the sizing was not endurance athlete friendly. I tightened the waist as much as possible, cuffed the legs about three times over, tucked the waist into my shorts to hold it in place, and almost snapped the belt, but I was then in something resembling race-readiness. I was able to knock out a good 2.5km warm-up jog, to get some blood moving and make sure the outfit wouldn't be too much of a hindrance.

I was able to line up near the front, and once we were on our way, set off at what I thought was a good pace. As it turned out, it was NOT a good pace, it was much quicker than I had any business going. I'm still recovering from the month off, and have no real legs. Additionally, I haven't done any fast running in about two months, so knocking out a 3:43 opening kilometer was a big mistake. Realistically, 19:30 would have been a reasonable target, but I was rolling the dice.

Snake eyes. The next couple of km's were pretty rough. I tried to keep the effort up, but my lack of familiarity with hard efforts right now had me bargaining with myself. I hate when I do that. I know that I can keep pushing, but I let myself off the hook. That's no way to race. I was able to dig out a reasonable last kilometer, but the damage was done.

Official Results:
20:09.2 clock, 20:07.0 chip, 34/2610 overall, 5/105 AG

Now, if I didn't let myself get swept up in the racing, this would have been a great day. The weather was perfect, the atmosphere was a blast. But no, I tried to actually race, and right now I'm in no condition to do that. I don't know where my legs are from September, I don't know where my "grip" has gone. To race, I need to be reacquainted with that "heart in my throat" sensation. I have faith in the system of Lydiard training, and I know all this base work will pay off, but for now, I don't have the speed. Very slowly, my legs are coming back, but the winter weather makes it hard to compare one run to the next. My volume is regularly as high as it's ever been, so I'm on the right path.

To that end, I'm rethinking my spring. What I'll do is a series of 5k's, with a secret goal time to accomplish by the end. Then it will be back to base, setting up a couple of 10k's in the fall. If I make great progress in those arenas, I'll carry a lot of confidence into the marathon training for 2012. And if that goes well, I'll be on point for January 2013.