I won't lie. Winning prizes in athletic endeavors really appeals to me. In a previous stage of my life, I played 15 years of competitive slow-pitch softball. I was fortunate enough to play on some championship-winning teams, and over the years, I amassed a sizable collection of gaudy "League Champion" t-shirts and cheaply made trophies that may get $5 tops if I decided to trade them all in at the scrap metal shop. Nevertheless, they meant a lot to me, after all, I didn't buy them, I won them with a little bit of my passable softball ability and a whole lot of having more talented teammates!
The same goes for running, only the dynamics are different. With the exception of gigantic races like the Louisville Triple Crown of running, there are no such thing as running "teams". You are out there racing for you and only you, and with someone with modest running ability like me, prizes are hard to come by. If you're a runner who is the the equivalent of a backup outfielder in softball, you will be going home empty-handed 99 times out of 100. Sad but true.
This includes age group awards; most races award prizes to the top two or three runners in a five or ten year window. In 2010, I ran in five or six races and won zero awards. I was also shut out of the first two races of 2011. Then, on July 9, I turned in a perfectly lackluster performance in a 4-mile trail race in Clarksville, IN. I finished in 36th place overall, but managed to get 3rd place in my age group. I took home a Mizuno tech shirt and a bottle coozie for my effort; the first awards I ever won for running.
It all came down to luck; most of the guys who finished ahead of me were in their teens or early 20's. I don't know how many others were in my 35-39 age group, but I suspect I could have been 3rd out of 4, or even 3rd out of 3. But due to my luck and my age, I hauled away some loot while the 4th place finisher in the 20-25 group, who undoubtedly beat my time by 5 minutes plus, got squadouche. C'est la vie.
Of course, the opposite is true. Your luck could be bad as well. When I set my 5K personal best time of 22:15, I finished in 16th place overall, but only 6th in my age group. I ran the race of my life that day but had the misfortune of being in an age group that was completely stacked. I got nothing for that race, but it made me hungrier...maybe if I ran a race like that again against softer competition, then my proverbial trophy case wouldn't be empty any more.
Which is why my ears pricked up when I ran into my friend Kristi Whitehill at Ivy Tech Community College in Sellersburg, where I am a student. Kristi taught the first class I ever took there, COMM 102, and I always liked her style; she seemed like a fellow free spirit. She was also a running nut, and mentioned to me that she was actually putting on a 5K that Saturday. I told Kristi I was actually planning on running the Fleet Feet Fiesta 3-miler in Cherokee Park that night, but she wouldn't hear of it. She kept on trying to get me to come out for her small Spirit Run race in Buckner, KY, way out in Oldham County, which would help raise money for her daughter's volleyball team. She told me there would only be about 40 people there and that the top three finishers in their age groups would get a medal.
That made me change my plans. My chances of winning something in Kristi's race were far better than my chances in Cherokee Park, where I personally knew elite runners who would compete in it. That, and I wouldn't have to wait until 8:00 pm to run. Easy decision.
When I walked up to Kristi on Saturday morning, she seemed surprised that I would drive out all that way from Indiana just to do a 5K. Her persuasion on me paid off. We were in the Oldham County High School football stadium and we would begin and end the race on the 1/4 mile track surrounding the gridiron. It was there that I got my first look at the course:
It was actually very challenging. The race would take place over four different surfaces: track, cross-country, trail, and pavement. And from the map provided, the course looked very winding and twisting. I just hoped the course was well marked so wrong turns would be avoided. Kristi assured me that she spray painted markers everywhere around the course.
It was getting very close to race time, so I began to check out my competition. The vast majority of the participants were high school girls; I didn't know if this was the volleyball team that would inherit the race proceeds or the local cross-country squad. Either way, they all seemed to be in great athletic shape. There were not a lot of guys. I counted five others; two of them were walkers and the other three seemed to be serious runners. They were all in much better athletic shape than I; a couple of them wore heart monitors on their wrists. "Oh well" I thought, maybe I could finish 3rd or 4th overall and get 2nd in my age group, if I was lucky. I would be happy with that.
Kristi called us all to the starting line, which was on the track behind the high jump pit. The total number of participants was lower that her projected 40; maybe 25 on the low end and 30 on the high. It didn't matter though, as I estimated that 90% of the field looked to be better athletes than I. My doughy body couldn't compete with any of them cosmetically, but this wasn't a wet t-shirt contest, it was a 5K. Could my training regimen of circuit training and Turbo Kick give me the legs to compete today?
Kristi went over the layout of the race course, and it sounded like driving directions you would get out in the country from some hillbilly, "Run along the fence row by the golf course, take a left, go through the woods, come out by the soccer fields, take another left..." Wow. I'm glad I actually looked at the map a little bit, or I could really get lost.
She began her countdown, "We start in two minutes." I readied the running mix I made on my iPhone of pumping techno tracks that would be my soundtrack today. Techno music actually makes me run faster, and it drowns out my heavy breathing at the end of a race that would ordinarily remind me that I was getting exhausted. "One minute." I stepped over the starting line to clear a couple of pebbles off of the course. You never can be too careful. "Thirty seconds." I pressed "play" on my iPhone and started my running music. "Fire" by Ferry Corsten would guide me through the first mile or so:
Kristi then counted down from 10 seconds. I got into my crouching position, right leg in front, and, as I nervously do before every race start, wiggle my fingers as if I were performing a manic piano solo. "Three, two, one..."
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