Summary: 17:48 over a cross-country 5k for 2nd place at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. A decent effort, but not great. Would have hoped to have been about 20 seconds faster given the effort. Almost a carbon copy of last year's race, in that I ran decent 1st and 3rd miles but got my butt kicked by the hills in the 2nd mile. 7 pm race, so I started warming up around 4:30. There had been heavy rain earlier, so I jogged to the Y and ran a couple miles on the treadmill, then came back and stretched. Left the house around 5:45 and drove down to the Bronx, arriving about 6:10. Got registered and warmed up. Storms were threatening with dark clouds and lightning in the distance, but it didn't rain. It was about 70 and very humid when the race started.
Van Cortlandt Track Club puts on these cross country races every other Thursday all summer, and this was the last installment. I ran one last summer but this was my first this summer. The atmosphere is super low-key: it only costs $5 to enter, there are no t-shirts, prizes are carrot muffins from the bakery across the street, and most of the entrants (around 100-150) seem to come from the surrounding neighborhood. In the play fields all around the start and finish area, neighborhood kids and adults were playing football, baseball, soccer, rugby, field hockey, etc without paying much attention to the cross country race.
Van Cortlandt Park is probably the most famous cross country course in the country. Tons and tons of championship races from HS to college to pro have been held here for decades. This course started with about 3/4 mile around the play fields and then went back up into the wooded hills for the middle section until coming back down to the fields for the last half mile. The surface is all dirt/gravel paths and it was kind of rough in places. Not only that, but it was a bit dark back in the woods because of the storm clouds and you really had to watch the trail closely. It is not the place to run a fast time!
The plan was to not go out too fast, and I didn't feel like I did, but I found myself at the front when the course left the flat and went up into the hills. This is where some interesting tactics played out. In a normal fun run, you usually don't get a lot of surges and pace changes - everyone just usually runs the same pace the whole time - but this was different, maybe owing to the fact that it was cross country on narrow hilly trails with a lot of turns. Around 1 mile, 2 guys working together (including the eventual winner, who I think is Jamaican) shot out in front. I covered that surge and they eased off. A couple minutes later, an older guy with a beard and yellow cap (who ended up 3rd) charged ahead but we pulled him in. Not long after, the Jamaican guy surged again and the older guy went along, but I couldn't stay with them. I was not doing well up the hills and they quickly had about 5 seconds on me. At around 2 miles I noticed that the older guy was coming back to me, and I was getting a bit of a 2nd wind. I was making up ground on all the downhills. As the course came down out of the woods and around the soccer fields with a half mile to go, I passed him. Unfortunately, the leader was long gone. I put in a half-hearted kick but the winner had me by 12 seconds and seemed to have plenty of gas left. The older guy lost 15 seconds on me but held on to 3rd.
It's funny because almost the exact same scenario played out last year when I raced here. I had a strong 1st mile, then absolutely died on the hills and lost a bunch of places, then regained some mojo on the last mile and passed some people back. Last year, though, I was fat and out of shape, so my time was 52 seconds faster this year.
I wore the Garmin and HRM and had hoped to get some data from the run, but evidently I failed to start it, so I have no data, which is a bummer. Also, the HRM kept slipping down from my chest onto my stomach during the race and I had to re-adjust it a few times, which was distracting. Overall it was a decent race, definitely not great. The goals were to run hard and get an early-season readout on where I am in training, and to try to increase the pace each mile. For the effort I put in, even taking the slow course into consideration, I thought I would have been about 20 seconds faster. It didn't feel like I went out too fast, but the 2nd-mile hills hit me all at once, so maybe I did. I think the weak middle of the race reflects the fact that I haven't really done much strength work yet: I need some 800/1200/mile repeats, tempo runs, and hills to whip me into racing shape. Competitively speaking, it was a decent effort, again not great. I made an effort to stay in front for the first couple of moves, but couldn't hang in there the 2nd mile when they broke ahead. I did reel in the one guy, but I should have put in a ballsier kick. On the plus side, I did win a carrot muffin.
Stayed up real late after the race lifting weights in the basement, icing, and watching the Olympics.
Triax (1): 356 + 300 est. Triax (2): 107
Adistar: 559 + 50 est. Adistar (2): 6.7
Cumulus: 273
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