Blog Archives
Colon Cancer 5K
Race #8 Overall
After returning from San Francisco with my toe still intact I felt I could easily handle this race. This was the race I really wanted to do anyway since it had a direct correlation to my late father who spent nearly two years fighting colon cancer. I was hoping to have my aunt with me but some family emergencies kept her from coming up to the city.
The day started off interesting enough though. I didn’t sign up early enough and I couldn’t make to the packet pickups due to work and traffic. I had an hour to get from downtown to Perkins Road and on Thursday I couldn’t even do that thanks to constant construction on every other street in southdowns. Sometimes I really hate Baton Rouge traffic. So I just signed up Saturday morning. I knew I didn’t have the cash as I had forgotten to go by the ATM anyway, so I took my checkbook. Then as I open it up to write a check, I’m reminded that I didn’t replace my checks, so I had no blank checks remaining to use. Wow, I thought to myself. That’s what I get for rushing. But they were able to take credit cards too so I just used it. It’s a sad time where I don’t carry around $30 anymore.
The race was set up fairly well, lots of booths, snacks, water/juice and a band from Angola. Wow, we got our own prison band. They actually were pretty good. But the whole Dept of Corrections van and cops constantly watching them just felt strange.
The starting line wasn’t very pronounced and they had to remind people several times that runners go in front and walkers in back because it seemed they didn’t order a chip start, and only bibs with numbers less than 800 were getting chip finish times. So it was a gun time. It turned out to not be that bad. I probably crossed the start within 5-10 seconds. The finish line was orderly however. It just took a while to get our official finish times although I did notice that I was around 34:04 when I got to the finish.
They had 540 people in the 5K which was pretty impressive for this race. Way to go everybody! There were so many teams also that were raising money for various people. I honestly had no idea you could take the race bib and flip it over and write who you were honoring. No idea. I didn’t realize until I started seeing a few while on the course. I’ve never thought about looking on the back of a bib before. I guess I will from now on.
The run itself was very comfortable for about the first half. Then the sun came out for the second half and it got hot, especially hot for me because I was still recovering from a decent sunburn I got in California. So when the sun came out, I literally began to feel my skin sizzle. Great, I thought. I’m at a colon cancer run getting skin cancer now. What are the odds. Ha! Actually, I’ve been burnt so bad as a kid, I’ll be surprised if I don’t get melanoma sometime in my life. Hopefully God continues to watch over me.
So all in all, a very fun race. The course at Pennington is partially off-road however. But I’m already getting used to it, except we ran it in reverse from the Dietetics race back in March.
Change of plans again. Turns out I’m working over Memorial Day weekend out at the sinkhole, so no Mississippi run that weekend. I’m thinking of making that one up in December with the Pass to Bay run in Pass Christian. I’m also probably not going to do the run in Fort Worth this weekend while in the DFW Metroplex. Wouldn’t be fair on the parental units making them get up so early to drive nearly an hour from our hotel to downtown Fort Worth for a 10K race before the festival even starts. Nevermind it couldn’t be much more convenient and the weather in north Texas for early May couldn’t be more perfect, possible 50s in the morning, mid 70s in the day. That’s unheard of for Dallas in May. I’m not sure when I’ll make up the Texas race yet, but there are many good runs around Houston and perhaps I can find another during a cool month. There is a night beach run in Galveston and on Padre Island, just to keep my options open. I’m also still eyeing Alabama for sometime this year. So potentially five states in one year still isn’t bad. I just don’t know what I’m going to do when everywhere I have left to go is a three hour flight away. Do I just take off a month and travel around the country? I wish!
Race: Get Your Rear In Gear
Date: April 27, 2013, 9AM
Place: Pennington Biomedical Center, Baton Rouge, LA
Time: 0:34:04
Charities: Colon Cancer Coalition
Mardi Gras Mambo 10K
Race #2 of the 13 in 2013
Race #4 Overall
Race bib
In the middle of battling some bronchial infection (bad sinuses, bronchitis, a bad cold… don’t know for certain even still), I set out to complete my first 10K with minimal real training. I felt that I could easily walk it because I had walked a few 4 milers recently with the cold forming, so worst case I would just walk the entire thing. That was the plan going into it especially if the going got tough. The tough start walking.
The event is operated pretty well. They had two days of early packet pickup on Perkins Road. On race morning they are handing out fruits and performing organized stretches inside the Atrium in downtown Baton Rouge. It was chilly this particular morning but not seriously cold… yet. It was about 40 degrees and I didn’t feel much wind.
Start of the race
So by race time, we organize outside on St. Phillip St, grouped by finishing time but no real corrals. I’ve heard about corrals but I haven’t really seen them yet (or maybe it’s because I’m looking for actual cattle corrals). I made sure to start towards the very back this time, basically right in front of the walker group even though several people started ahead and ended up finishing behind. All the groups still started together even though it took about 90 seconds before I actually crossed the starting line. It made logical sense not to run at all before the starting line. Why waste that 90 seconds of running. Haha. The beauty of starting towards the back for me is that I have more room. I feel like I can create my own pace more quickly instead of running up behind other people or holding up someone behind me who wants to pass. The road opens up a lot quicker so I find it easier to pass and stay out of others way. Not to mention, since I can’t run fast for long anyway, I find it a lot less intimidating. This race had a total of 1,372 participants who finished although supposedly 3,000+ were registered the website said.
Many people were decorated in one way or another. Mardi Gras hats, tutus, shirts galore (I wore the race shirt, long sleeved). I ran for the first half mile (less than the last race since I had to keep reminding myself that this race was twice as long as the last, then I started splitting it up between songs, I’d run thru a song on my iPod and walk thru another. We went down Nicholson towards the LSU campus and all seemed fairly well. I even felt hot for a few moments since there was plenty of sun.
We passed Mike the Tiger’s cage around Mile 2 and that’s where I ran into a friend who seemed to be content with walking most of the distance. I don’t know if I caught up to her or if she passed me while walking, I wasn’t paying much attention until she stopped and turned around and starting smiling and saying something and I pulled my earbuds out like ‘What?’ At that moment, I basically stopped running. I only ran three additional short instances after that. Me and Vivian basically stayed together and talked about school, work, life and anything else that came up for the remainder 4 miles.
This is also the point where the wind really picked up. I kept hoping it would die back down but it basically got super windy and stayed that way the rest of the day. It was a cold wind too. It was then that I was very thankful to have that long sleeved shirt on. We continued thru the LSU campus, bypassing South Stadium where they are working on the most recent Tiger Stadium expansion to enclose the south endzone (awesome!). We ran across Nicholson again because traffic was getting backed up pretty bad and we didn’t want them to think they were waiting solely on us. We also got across the railroad tracks about a minute before a train came across. That would have sucked for sure. I wonder what happened closer to the start where the train crossed probably 15-20 minutes earlier. I guess I figured they would have stopped the train traffic at least for the race, and perhaps they did for the earlier finishers. Some people did finish in the 30ish minute mark.
Levee path
At the River Road, we ran across the road again because traffic was stopped (mostly people trying to bypass Nicholson I’m sure). Then we went up the levee path and walked along the levee path back towards downtown. I ran one last time right before the finish line because I turned the corner and saw the clock and it said something like 1:29:45 and instantly I was thinking 90 MINUTES! Even though I knew chip time would be less than the gun time, I was determined to make it for 90 minutes. I must have crossed right around 1:30:03 but chip time was easily nearly 2 minutes shorter. So I finished in under 90 minutes. Vivian said her time last year was 1:34ish so she made a new PR as well. At that point we hugged and went our separate ways.
The Mambo Medal
Oh, I got another medal. This is becoming fun, collecting finisher medals. I need a case to store them in now. I intend to get a lot. Not to mention I intend to get a ton of new shirts also. I guess I can get some smaller sizes and hand them to friends and family because what am I going to do with a bunch of new shirts that I might only wear once or twice? I’ve already had to buy some new hangers to hang some of them up (the ones I’ve gotten since last November).
So, all-in-all, the Mambo was a blast. I look forward to next years run where perhaps I’ll run more. I look forward to perhaps shattering that PR, unless I run into Vivian again. Haha.
I didn’t really hurt at all after this race, but of course I can attribute that to the fact that I walked more than 2/3 of it. Next year I’ll suffer more. In the meantime, I’ve got another 10K scheduled for two weeks in Vicksburg. That one is gonna kick my ass for sure. Do you know what kind of hills they have in Vicksburg?
Race: Mardi Gras Mambo 10K
Date: February 16, 2013, 9AM
Place: River Road, LSU Campus Baton Rouge
Time: 1:28:19
500K Across the USA 