Hartog’s Den

On Sunday, May 3rd, I will run my first scheduled race of the year!  Bloomsday, held in Spokane, WA, is a 12k (7.46 mile) race that starts and ends in downtown Spokane, with the course snaking through some fairly scenic roads in the suburbs around downtown.  I’m looking forward to running the race for my second time.  I had the opportunity to run this course last year, and was pleased with my time, averaging a pace of about 8:20 per mile, which I hope to either match or beat this year.

There were two aspects to the race that stuck out during last years jaunt.  There are 50000 competitors.  50000.  That is a LOT of people, and this makes it easily one of the largest road races in the country.  In fact, it takes almost 80 minutes for every competitor to even cross the starting line!  Not once in the race does the race spread out enough that you feel isolated.  At any point in the race, there are a lot of people around you.  It’s both good and bad, although I found that I liked it a lot, as it felt more like a party than a race, and the whole thing felt very social.  Fortunately, this race is chip-timed, meaning that your recording your own specific time rather than following a master clock.  Your time starts for you when you cross the starting line.  This alleviates the almost guaranteed chaos that would take place otherwise.

The other part of the race is the part that everyone dreads, and it goes by the name of Doomsday hill.  At about mile 5 of the course, there is a huge, very steep hill, which you see approaching about a mile prior to the hill.  This gives you the lovely opportunity of staring at this monstrosity and thinking about the pain that is to come.   Living in Pullman, WA, however, has its benefits.  This place is nothing but hills.  Any run that I go on has hills of some kind somewhere, so I never have to go out of my way to get my hill workout in.  It proved very beneficial in both last year’s Bloomsday and the Portland Marathon, which both had a couple of really bad hills.

Spokane has been, in my eyes, a city of contrasts.  It’s similar in size to Boise (where I grew up), but I’ve never held it in the same esteem in which I hold Boise.  There are areas of Spokane that make me feel very uncomfortable.  Many of my negative thoughts about Spokane vanished after my Bloomsday experience last year.  The course was beautiful, the people were amazing, and the city very hospitable!  I’m looking forward to running this race again, along with tens of thousands of others!

My training last week was good, not great.  I had some heel pain (long-time Achilles injury), and ultimately decided that it was in my best interest to skip my weekend long run.  It was disappointing, but my history with injuries always causes me to err on the side of caution.

Mon 3/30:  3.83 miles.  I ran the first 1.5 miles at a very hard, sustained 7:20 / mi pace, which I paid for by burning out shortly afterward and shuffling the last two miles, and then being in pain and exhausted that night.  Too far too fast…  Need to dial that back.  I took the next day off, as my legs felt like rubber.

Wed 4/1:  2.69 miles at 9:36 / mi pace.  Lots of hills, took it easy overall.

Thur 4/2:  4.79 miles at 9:06 / mi pace.  This run went really well, and felt strong through the whole thing.  Couple of big hills, no issues running up them.

Fri, Sat off.

Sun 4/5:  Ran 1.5 miles with girlfriend, who I appear to be conning into joining this wonderful sport!  Was planning another run of my own, but decided against it due to the heel.  That was frustrating, but that’s the way it goes sometimes…

Back next week!