Less fatigue excuses at least this year, but I still decided on wearing my knee sleeve to protect from the inflammation. It was actually meant to be chilly so I opted for long sleeves, tights and gloves which felt comfortable while waiting at the start but way too much once at full speed. Because full speed that run was about.
Driving with Agnès and Anouchka, we were the second car to get to the City View parking at 6:50 am, talk about early... turkeys!
I jogged to the start to snap a few pictures then to the finish/festival area to get more water, then back to the car to take a few layers off. It was below 40F when we left home but, after last weekend's atmospheric river, not a cloud on the forecast for this Thanksgiving: perfect weather to host 20,000 runners on that 20th edition!
It was my 16th consecutive run including 2009 when I entered the USATF-sanctioned 5K and clocked a 16:36. This year, the elite 5K was back, starting 5 minutes before the popular races. The elites ready to fly, with Race Director, Chris Weiler, better get out of the way
A selfie with Carl and Leslie Guardino, the original founder of this amazing tradition which led to more than $20 millions raised for local charities.
I was 3 to 4 lines behind the start and the first 200 yards turned to be rather hectic, slaloming between rather slow participants. Before the first turn, about 1/3 of a mile in, I managed to have a glance to my GPS: 6:15 min/mile, oh my, I had never ran that fast this year! With so many people ahead, I thought I was running at 7 min/mile...
One of our friends, Nathalie, was volunteering at the aid station after mile 1, in Japan Town, and snapped that picture of me wearing the hard working mask...
Typical of me, I had all sort of negatives thoughts in my mind, that this pace wasn't sustainable, the glutes felt tights, I was going to blow up sooner than later, I should have picked shorts, etc. Yet, I was stunned to clock a few more sub 6:30 miles so I kept going, being passed by some, and passing others.
At mile 1, Agnès looked much happier, didn't she?
Quite a few 5K runners turned off the left as we approached the end of the third mile but there were plenty ahead, on the 10K.
On the 4th mile, Thibault, the son of my friends Luc and Anne, caught up with me and we ran the next mile together, both pushing hard. He passed me but I passed him again around the 4.5-mile chip timing mat, and he stuck with me in the final long straight stretch.
With half a mile to go, we passed a runner who seemed he could be in my age group. He reached out after the finish, he was actually 56.
I kept the pedal to the metal until the very end and was really happy to break 40 minutes this time: far from my best but 39:27, good enough for 3rd in my new age group. What I'm the most proud of is to see my average stride back to a healthy 1.32m while keeping a cadence of close to 190. It looks like I didn't lose everything after all, yet I know I have to build back more muscle to avoid another injury at that speed.
I have to say that there was quite some healthy competition in our group: the winner was Thomas Tayeri in 36:09, wow! I'm blown away by his Athlinks stats showing amazing PRs all in his very late 50s.
I actually chatted with second place in our age group, Raymond (Ray) Rodriguez, who is 63 and clocked 37:39!
Big goals for next year, if my knee, and everything else, holds until then... For 25 years I thought I was invicible but not anymore!
Thibaut had started and finished behind me but got a better chip time of 39:22! There are gone my younger years! ;-)
At the finish line, I was navigating between two groups: a francophone one with friends from Santa Cruz.
And IBM colleagues whom I was trying to gather on Slack as we had a team of about 65 this year!
It felt so great to run fast again, I had no idea I still had these 6-minute miles in me. Like still being able to run 100K last week after such an injury and losing so much leg muscle, that felt surreal too. And encouraging for the future. It was great to see and meet friends and make new connections. To be part of such a lasting and healthy tradition. To run in such wonderful weather. And to think that there should be more miles and Turkey Trot editions in the future!
And speaking of editions and as a bonus, my traditional collection picture, now at 4 by 4. See you next year, that event will be of age as we say!
-- Race #367 | 60th 10K
1 comment:
Great Work Jean. stay healthy. :))))
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