Race Recap: Around the Crown 10k

The Around the Crown 10k has become the premier running event in Charlotte. Yet despite the fact that it takes place just 20 miles down the road from where I live, somehow I managed to miss the first 6 runnings of the event. This year I decided I'd just sign up months in advance, so I'd have to run it!

Fast-forward to 6 days ago, when I was just getting back from a massive 6-week road trip. I wasn't feeling great, and I feared I may be picking up some sort of illness. Sure enough, the next morning, I barely managed to get out of bed, let alone join my running buddies for my first group run in nearly two months. I ended up missing three days of running, finally getting going on an easy 5-miler on Thursday. My race was on Sunday. Each day I felt just a little better, and by Saturday I felt like I could at least give the race a go. My watch tells the story with this graph of my HRV over the past week. 

This graph roughly correlates to how I felt this week

Even though I felt a lot better as I got up this morning, today's HRV of 44ms was still considerably lower than my healthy average of ~55ms. I had a bite to eat, collected my gear, and headed out the door at 6:15, in plenty of time to make the 30-minute drive to Charlotte and warm up for the 7:30 start. I was driving down I-77, jamming to some Talking Heads, when suddenly I noticed that a critical bit of my race kit was missing: My bib number! I knew there was probably some way to retrieve the number at the race start, but it would involve waiting in a bunch of lines and also some embarrassment. I did a quick calculation and figured I could turn around, get the number, and still make it to the race on time. I made a quick exit and headed home. By the time I was back on the road my ETA at the race start was 7:20. I'd have to park and make it to my corral in less than 10 minutes. Fortunately this was downtown Charlotte and there were parking lots everywhere, so I was pretty sure I could make it. And I did make it, but not in time for any sort of warm-up. Instead I just stood nervously in the start corral with 7,600 of my best friends.

The vibe was definitely a little tense at this point

I wasn't positioned quite at the front of my corral, but I figured that since I hadn't had a chance to warm up, this would probably end up being a good thing. I could run my way into race pace. It's a hilly race, and between that and coming off an illness, I doubted I'd be anywhere close to a PR anyways, so no worries about any of that. On the other hand, I hate doing races when I'm not going all-out, so once I got through the first mile, I planned to go as hard as I could to the finish.

The first mile of the race was basically flat as we made our way through city streets towards I-277, a short section of interstate that circles downtown Charlotte. I tried to keep my pace relatively easy while staying with the runners around me. If I was perfectly healthy I think I could run this race in under 7-minute mile pace, but today I'd be happy if I ended up with something around 7:30/mile. Mile 1: 7:28.

Next we headed down an onramp and then made a 180-degree turn to head east on I-277. Here I could see hundreds of runners stretched out ahead, as well as the runners "behind" me who were now above me on the overpass:

It was pretty cool to run on an Interstate that I've driven a lot!

The next two miles would trend downhill on I-277 as we ran along the south side of downtown Charlotte, then turned north and ran along the east side of the city center. I picked up the pace and began passing folks right and left. Every time we went under an overpass, there would be dozens of fans cheering us on with the usual "Worst Parade Ever" and "Hey Random Stranger -- You Got This" signs. I still chuckle when I see the same signs I've seen dozens of times before, so they do work! Mile 2: 7:09. Mile 3: 7:13.

I was prepared for Mile 4, which featured the biggest climb of the race, about 100 vertical feet in a half-mile. It was just after we started to head back west on the north side of the city. The mile marker to start the mile, everyone around me agreed, was out of place, around 3.2 miles in to the race. The hill didn't care. I told myself it was okay to go as slow as 8:00 per mile on the hill as long as I picked the pace back up at the top. The hill would end about 0.7 miles into Mile 4, and we'd have a third of a mile to recover. I passed quite a few people on the hill, thanks to a lot of hill training this summer in Santa Fe at 7,300 feet elevation. I did pick up the pace as I crested the hill, and had a 7:46 split for Mile 4.

Mile 5 gave us another chance to recover from the big hill, as it was mostly downhill. Here we exited the freeway and headed back onto city streets. 7:11. I knew there was one more hill, but I couldn't remember exactly where it was. That said, we were running out of real estate. It came at Mile 5.2. It wasn't as steep as the hill in Mile 4, but it was just as long, and I was more tired for this one. I reminded myself there was less than a mile to go, and willed myself on. I did manage to run Mile 6 a little faster than Mile 4, at 7:39. Now there was just one last corner, and one last straightaway to the finish. I put everything I had into it, then crossed the line.

My watch had the course a little short, at 6.12 miles. By my watch, my average pace was 7:28 / mile, which was under my revised post-illness goal. I'll take it. Officially my pace was 7:18 and my time was 45:20, 13th out of 130 in my age group. I'll use this as my baseline as I start to train for the Philadelphia Marathon, November 23. 

Afterward I met up with several of my running buddies. Everyone had a great time and everyone agreed that that Mile 3 marker was WAY long!

Planning to do a lot more running with these great folks in the coming months!

If you'd like more data, check out my Strava record of the race.

Duathlon Nationals, Omaha 2025

I’ve run the Sprint Duathlon National Championships a few times, and qualified for the world championships by finishing near the top of my age group. But due to COVID and other factors, I’ve never managed to get to the actual world championship event. So this year I decided to try to make a world team and then actually go to the championship! The race this year is in Omaha, and for some reason I wasn’t able to convince my wife or anyone else to join me here, so there are not really any photos of the event. But being here by myself does mean I have time to write a post about the race, so if you like to read, you’re in luck!

I grew up watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom on TV, so I was actually kind of excited to go to Omaha to race, which was actually sponsored by…you guessed it, Mutual of Omaha! They have a building in Omaha and everything!

[I was going to add a photo of the building but it turns out Blogger won’t let me do that on my phone. Just imagine a medium-sized building with a Mutual of Omaha sign on the top]

Anyways, I got to the race start this morning and set up my bike in the transition area. After a quick warm-up run we were soon lining up in the start area. The race has 3 legs: a 5k run, a 20k ride, and a 2.5k run. My plan was to run about a 6:45 pace on the first run. I wasn’t feeling great this morning but I hoped race-day adrenaline would carry me through. After I settled in to what felt like a good pace, I looked at my watch and saw I was running about 6:35 pace. Not bad. I wasn’t feeling great also passing quite a few runners who clearly had started off too fast, which is always a good feeling. Then my watch beeped and I glanced down at it: “Performance Condition: 11”. Eleven? I thought. Usually it doesn’t go any higher than three or four! Clearly something is wrong! I think the high performance condition was supposed to give me confidence but since I had never seen it this high, it was doing the opposite. I ended up running a 6:46 for the mile, but then things started to get tough. The same effort was showing up on my watch as a 7:00 pace. I did everything I could to bring the pace back down, but I didn’t want to blow up. I was still passing runners so I wasn’t exactly choking. Mile 2: 6:55. Now I just needed to hang on until I got to the bike. I was settled in behind a couple guys and I figured if I stayed with them we could team up on the ride, which was draft-legal. We cruised through Mile 3 in 6:59. Finally we were on the grass running towards transition. I stumbled and nearly fell on the uneven grass. My Hoka “supershoes” were not made for this! 

My plan for the bike was to not change shoes. I had put flat pedals on the bike so I could save time in transition—critical in this short race. I quickly snapped on my helmet and ran with my bike to the start of the course. Then I heard a spectator yelling “number 639, your helmet’s on backwards!” Really? Me? It was a new helmet and I hadn’t used it much, so I guess it was a possibility. I stopped and took it off, and sure enough, I had put the *@$& thing on backwards. I probably lost 30 seconds fixing it, losing any advantage I had gained by riding in my running shoes. Finally I got on the bike and got to riding. There were a couple guys near me so I decided to try to stick with them and see if we could work together. Unfortunately when we got to the first climb, both of them slowed way down, so I had to pass them, and they couldn’t keep up. I decided to ride on my own. At least there wasn’t any wind so it wasn’t terrible keeping up a decent pace. I was hoping for at least 20 mph on the ride and I was pretty close to that. The course features three U-turns, and you have to do three loops, which means you navigate these turns nine times. When I reached the second U-turn, a group of riders caught me so I decided to try to run with them. I could stay with them fairly easily until we reached any corner. Then the group would break apart and I would really have to work hard to get back with them. But I decided the trade-off in easier riding when we were together was worth it. 

Eventually the group broke up again and we lost two riders off the back, but there was still a solid trio that I was able to stay with for the entire ride. I finished the ride with a 20.7 mph average on a fairly hilly course, with 430 feet of climbing over the 20k. I definitely don’t think I could have done that riding solo, so I was glad for the assist. 

The nice thing about cyclists who catch you from behind is that you can probably beat them on the run—after all, you were ahead of them on Run 1! Also, my strategy of no shoe changes meant that I was first in our trio through transition. Run 2 was another out-and-back, and I went out at about a 7:00 pace. Once again, 6:45 pace wasn’t in the cards, but at least no one passed me on the run. I saw my two riding buddies at the turnaround and determined not to let them catch me in the final half of the run. I was able to pick up the pace slightly and pushed as hard as I could through the finish. I ended up averaging a 7:12 pace for the run, which was better than my last duathlon, so I was fairly satisfied with that. 

Overall, I ended up in fifth place out of 17 in my age group. I was over a minute behind the guy ahead of me, so I don’t think my helmet gaffe cost me a place, but it was still pretty ridiculous! 

This placement is good enough to qualify for worlds next year, is in Abu Dhabi, so that’s pretty cool! I’m definitely planning on going, so I’d better start practicing that all-important helmet mount! 

Here are links to my Strava records of the event

Run 1

Ride

Run 2

Race recap: Little Sugar Creek Parkrun #7

For the last several years, I've been making an effort (between my various other running endeavors) to run a sub-20-minute 5k. I've run sub-20 many times before, but the last time I did was in 2016 at the Runway 5K in Charlotte, at the age of 49. I haven't done it once since I turned 50.

For the last several months, in support of that effort, I've been making an effort to shed some weight. I gained quite a bit of weight last summer as we traveled in the Northwest for 6 weeks with relatively little opportunity for me to exercise. I've managed to shed 15 pounds since then and am currently the lightest I have been since 2016 (I don't really keep records of my weight so that's a bit of a guess). But I did use an app to help with the weight loss effort this time so I have tracked my weight pretty consistently for the last six months. Here's a graph of my progress:

I ran a 5k on February 1 and got a 20:39. Having lost 5 pounds since then and feeling pretty good about my training, I figured today would be a good day to try another one: my favorite road race for fast 5ks in the area, the Little Sugar Creek Parkrun. It's free, nearly pancake-flat and is an honest 5k distance. 

My friend Chas also wanted to do the race today, so we met at the course this morning 40 minutes before the event. After a 2-mile warmup together, it was time to change into my race shoes, do a few strides, and get ready to race.

After a quick intro from the race director, we were started with a "3-2-1-Go!" and off we went.

I had chatted with some online friends before the race to decide whether to run conservatively or start right out at sub-20 pace. The consensus: GO FOR IT!

As I started out I began to regret this decision. I was thinking "this is insane. There is no way I'm going to come anywhere close to my sub-20." Then around 800 meters in I looked at my watch. I was running 6:07 pace -- I only need a 6:26 for sub-20. There were three runners ahead of me: Chas, the legendary local runner Chuck Engle (who has run over 500 marathons, typically sub-3 hours), and another guy who I'm calling "Da-Da" because he ran past his son at the start, who cheerfully yelled "GO DA-DA." Chas and Chuck were quickly vanishing into the distance but I was maintaining a bit of contact with Da-Da. 

I decided to back off a little bit and let Da-Da increase his lead on me. Da-Da must have also felt he went out too fast because he wasn't gaining much ground. I got through Mile 1 in 6:21.

I managed to keep the pace right around 6:26 per mile until we reached the bridge halfway through the race. The course turns sharply right, crosses the bridge, then does a 180 turn and crosses back and does a sharp left to head back to the start. This slowed me down; I was now running about a 6:30 pace. Da-Da was stubbornly about 30 meters ahead of me. I finished Mile 2 in 6:30. So if I was going to get my sub-20 I was going to need to pick the pace back up to 6:26 for the remainder of the race.

Unfortunately my body didn't seem to want to go that fast. I was gasping for every breath, and Da-Da gradually increased his gap on me. I negotiated with myself and settled on a 6:40 pace. Somehow I held this through the end of Mile 3. Just 0.1 to go! I turned the final corner toward the finish and gave it everything I had. I think that was roughly the 6:26 I should have been running for the last mile. I held on through the finish line and stopped my watch at 20:14. 

While this wasn't sub-20, as it turns out this was my best 5k since I turned 50. I think I just might be able to crack that sub-20 this season. The only challenge is that my next big event is an epic trail run in the Grand Canyon. On March 21 I'm planning to do a 30+ mile run from the South Rim, across the river, up to Ribbon Falls halfway up the North side of the canyon, and back. So my next 5k likely won't be until April, and who knows what the Grand Canyon run will take out of me! I will do what I can to recover as quickly as possible from the Grand Canyon, and I should have time to do a couple more 5ks in late spring. So it won't be easy, but it will definitely be a good experience no matter what. What's the point of running if you don't try epic things?