The Scene Begins

For my last full day in Chicago, I found another race to participate in. Chase the Bear 5k in Glenview was close enough to where I was staying that I was able to squeeze it in before heading off to another full day of work. The race was in its 14^th year and featured a certified course and chip timing. This was my ‘goal race’ of the weekend and one that I was looking to do well at. I signed up 10 days before the race and got in 3 good speed workouts during that time. Well, four if you count the 10k trail race I did 36 hours prior to this one. My slow ultra-legs were groaning a little at the thought of trying to run fast, but those workouts were enough to shake just a little bit of the rust off and give me a feel for the kind of pace I could try to sustain in my current condition.

I arrived early enough to run a slow lap of the course and familiarize myself with the many turns that we would encounter. Most of it was on quiet residential streets, but there was also a long section on sidewalk (the entire top line on the map above). I wasn’t too excited about that part, but it was entirely flat and about 800′ above sea level so I didn’t have much to complain about.

I even paused to do a little course cleanup.

The gloomy skies made good on their appearance and started to spit rain a little while before the start. It stayed that way through the race and was refreshing, though my Kinvara’s seemed a little slippery on the wet asphalt. Not much tread on those shoes.

My aim was to break the 20 minute mark, as I had never done that before. I hadn’t run a 5k in a few years, though. My nearly 3 year old heel injury has prevented me from doing any faster efforts for a very long time. Now it is on the mend and I feel like I can start working some of that back into my running routine.

I lined up on the front row and enjoyed the drumroll provided by the on-site marching band leading up to the gun. Soon we were off chasing the bear!

credit: chasethebear.com

credit: chasethebear.com

Mile 1

The first mile was all about trying to find a sustainable pace. I kept feeling like I was slowing, then surging, slowing, then surging. I settled into 7^th place with a couple of guys on my shoulder that were breathing pretty hard. I felt a little too comfortable as I hit the first mile split in 6:14. I was 12 seconds ahead of my goal pace, but knew I had a little more to give.

Mile 2

The second mile was my favorite. I had upped the intensity and was now working hard, but feeling like I had my pace dialed in perfectly and was holding the line between running as fast as I possibly could, and blowing up. I would end up splitting a 6:05 on this one, putting further time in the bank against the 6:26 average I needed to break 20 minutes.

Sometime during this mile I was running alongside another guy when I spotted something darting back and forth in the road ahead. It looked like a mouse. It was a mouse! It was moving so erratically, that my first instinct was to look around on the sidelines and see who was controlling it. I thought we were getting punked. I didn’t alter my line and got a good look as it passed between my feet. It was real, alright. The other guy and myself just looked at each other and shrugged.

Mile 3

This mile sucked. Not for the usual reasons that the third mile of a 5k sucks, though. It was just complicated and I made a mess out of it. I was still working hard and holding, or even improving my pace from the mile before. I was well into the sidewalk section now, and keeping a sharp eye out for cracks that I might trip on. I caught up to a man and woman that had been ahead of me for the entire race.

They were running shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk. I didn’t have an easy way to get by, and wasn’t even sure that I had anything in the legs to get by with if given the chance. This was a race, I didn’t have any expectation for them to ‘let’ me go through by moving over, I knew it was up to me. Hung out for a while before deciding to go. Knowing that I was going to crack 20 minutes by a good amount, but feeling like I was having a decent day and wanting to make the most of it, I just couldn’t stay there any longer. Glancing down at my watch and seeing a current pace of 5:50 I thought to myself, “This one’s gonna hurt” as I kicked wide through the grass and over some driveways (luckily no hedges to hurdle) before popping back onto the sidewalk and trying to maintain my speed.

I had to slow down for a 90 degree turn onto another sidewalk, then build up the pace again. Another turn soon dumped us onto a road and I was able to keep most of my speed by swinging wide on the exit before lining up for the next turn. This is where things got really screwy. The man and woman were holding on and I hadn’t managed to loose them, but I still felt like I had enough in me to keep my position to the finish. Who knows (really not a big deal in the scheme of things…)?

Being on residential streets, I didn’t give a second thought to using all of the available road when taking corners and using the best possible line to get through them. That might be ok for 99.9% of the course, but not this one particular turn. This one had a super shallow cul-de-sac (like one extra house), with a little island in the road. I was cutting inside of the island and winding up for the next straightaway when I heard a yell.

“To the Right!”

I knew the course since I had run a warmup lap and shrugged this off, confident I knew where I was going. I was headed to the finish, and that was left!

A second later.

“To the RIGHT!”

Now I’m thinking what the hell?? The course goes left! I’m going left! I raise my left hand a bit and point left, still confident I’m correct.

Then.

“TO. THE. RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”, boomed the voice behind me.

It finally dawned on me what the guy behind was trying to tell me.

I needed to be taking the corner to the right of the island, not cutting to the inside. In a millisecond my brain finally woke up and processed the fact that with this being a certified course, it had to have been measured in a specific way. In this case, to the right of the island.

My intended line:

What I ended up doing:

It took another millisecond to consider, then dismiss the idea of continuing on my current trajectory. I didn’t want to get DQ’d in the only 5k I’ve run in years! I yanked the emergency brake and reversed course and took the correct route. There was indeed a sign on the island, but it was confusing as the arrow points up and to the right when the course so obviously goes left. I guess I’m just too used to following bits of flagging tape hung from tree branches out in the woods…

My pace took a substantial hit, and I never recovered my lost positions. Finishing on the heels of the man and woman without having anything left to get by after catching back up to them again.

I had unknowingly been in 2^nd place after making the pass on the sidewalk, but wound up 4^th out of 141 after the island debacle. Not a big deal.  I was happy Bill shouted me back on course, but it took a while to regain the hearing in my right ear… My mushy brain was asleep at the wheel.

I was SUPER happy with my finish considering how much I had asked of my legs with only 10 days of prep time, and doing a 20 miler 3 days before, the 10k trail race, and a lot of travel and work thrown in there. I think I could get within sniffing distance of a high 18 time before too long, but that would probably be the limit of my old-man 5k potential. I’m excited to take another crack at it!

I guess I would have been entitled to some sort of award as 3^rd place male, but had to immediately clean up and bolt for work. I wished I could hang out and enjoy the atmosphere a little more. It was a really nice event and one that I would absolutely do again if I had the chance. Just stay to the right of the island next time! 🙂

A business trip to the Chicago area provided me with the platform to do this race.  I skipped the trip downtown with the rest of the crew to attend a baseball game and drove 90 minutes west after putting in a solid day of Friday work.  I was looking forward to this race because it was a trail race at night.  I love running trails at night, and getting the chance to do a faster effort vs. walking/stumbling the night away in a 100 miler sounded like a lot of fun.

I made it to Rock Cut State Park with plenty of time to get in a nice slow 4 mile warmup with a few strides thrown in to loosen up the legs after all of the plane and car time, plus the 20 miler I had run the day before, and sitting in the cold AC of a data center all day.  I was pleased that my legs felt good and ready to roll.  I ran a bit on a paved path and came across an intersection with some flagging leading down some dirt.  I followed it thinking I had found the course and was expecting it to be a very fast race because the trail seemed quite tame.

I would later learn, as I was huffing my way in the dark up and down steep, root-filled singletrack ascents and descents, that I had been warming up on the 25k/50k course that was going to be used over the weekend.  So much for the preview!

The course ran around a lake in the southern half of the park.  I would say it was equal parts fast cruising and challenging trail.

I saw and heard more than a few stumbles and wipeouts, and was glad that I had made the call to grab my super bright Fenix flashlight as well as my headlamp.  It really sucked not being able to swing my arm that was carrying the flashlight while trying to run fast, but the tradeoff in being able to light up all of the obstacles made it totally worth it.  I would have been in trouble trying to get by with my dinky headlamp.

They had generator-lights set up at the start/finish area and there was a cool vibe among the crowd.  I knew we were in for an exciting race.  A few minutes before go time, the crowd started walking with a purpose down the park road.  I had no idea what was going on, but followed along and found out that the start was actually down the road a bit.  I love the unique-ness of race starts.  From jets flying overhead at Boston, to the pitch black sky at Leadville, I’ve seen many of them – and this one was really cool.  I managed to score a spot at the far left of the front row.  It was completely dark now and there were 130 runners with lights on hooting and howling.  We all sang the national anthem together which was a nice touch, and then nervously eyeballed the 30 feet of grass separating us from the wall of trees ahead.  There was a 10 foot opening that we were aiming for, and I was grinning at the thought of the sprint that was sure to come.  There was a guy on a bike that would be leading the way with his bright lights, and after giving him a few second’s head start, we were off with a bang.  I sprinted for all I was worth and made it through the opening in 4th place.  Whew!  The first mile+ was on a gradually descending wide path and the speed was high as we sorted ourselves out.  Being content to get through the initial hole-shot charge in one piece, I eased back just a bit and gradually drifted back into 10th place before kicking it into gear and settling in for the next part of the race.

Once the singletrack and hills started in the second mile, I lost contact with the front group.  I just couldn’t quite hang with them and found myself leading the second pack before dropping all of them to run the rest of the race in no-man’s-land.  It ended up being a time trial for me as I ended up 1.5 minutes behind the lead group by the finish, but 2 minutes ahead of the next runner behind me.

The sparse glow sticks made for some tough navigation at times, and I was really wishing I had the legs to stay with that group.  As it was, I only made one small error that was quickly corrected.  At one point a couple of guys popped out onto the trail right in front of me and I informed them that they had cut the course, which I knew was super easy to do in that spot because I almost got caught by the same fork in the trail they had taken.

I hadn’t spent much time looking at my watch, which is pretty tough to do running at speed in the dark, but as I cruised up a longer but easier hill I decided I would take a look as I crested the top.  I spent just a beat or two longer than normal staring at the display to figure out my current time and how much farther I had left to go.  I looked up just in time to see a 18″ tree trunk spanning the trail at just over knee height.  I was planted with my left foot and thankfully my right was still on an upward trajectory and I was able to guide it up onto the tree and spring over it.  That was close!  Glad I didn’t end up with busted kneecaps.  The tree was well marked with flagging and glow sticks, I had just taken my eyes off the trail for too long.

The rest of the race was uneventful except for a whole lot of suffering.  There were a couple of short but unexpected and soul-crushing climbs in the last mile that really took it out of me.  Finally I broke into a clearing and was able to sprint across the grass to the finish line.

The only pass I made during the race was going by a kid that had taken a tumble and was walking it off.  That moved me up to 9th place, and I took first in my age group.  Despite the lack of company near by during the race, I still had a blast.  Racing through the forest like that at night is a riot.  Can’t wait to do it again.

The race was well run and had tons of pizza and ice cream afterwards.  It was nice to hang out for a bit before I had to make the drive back to the world of work that was waiting for me.