I ran the DC Rock 'n' Roll 5K this morning, finishing in a time of 21:45 by my watch.
I entered this race for two reasons: One was that several of my friends were running the half-marathon, and running the 5K gave me a nice excuse to be downtown so that I could linger and cheer for them after. The other was that I struggle with running fast in chaotic crowds, especially when hills are involved.
I'd like to run well at the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in two weeks, and Cherry Blossom is big, with a chaotic uphill-then-downhill start. This race promised to be big and chaotic, and had some decent hills in it, so it was a great opportunity to work on things I currently suck at in prep for Cherry Blossom.
***
I knew downtown was going to be a mess both before and during the race because of road closures. In addition, it's also cherry blossom time in DC, which means that the city is swarming with tourists in cars driving slowly while squinting at pink flowers. So I opted to park at the tennis center on Hains Point, and jog two miles to the 5K start. I usually need at least 3-4 miles warm-up before a 5K, and I also knew I'd be jogging at least 2 miles after the race, so I was fine being that far from the start. Parking on Hains Point also meant that I was less than half a mile from the bridge back into Virginia, so I would avoid much of the slow pink-flower crazy driving madness when leaving.
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| This worked well. [no, Metro didn't open early enough to be an option] |
I left home at 6:30 and got to the tennis center by 6:45. Then I donned my throwaway sweatshirt while knotting my "keeper sweatshirt" around my waist, and I was off. Two miles later, I was at the start (4th and Pennsylvania), where I checked my keeper sweatshirt, and then did the fartlek part of my warm-up (3:00 at marathon-half-marathon effort, 4x30 seconds at 5K effort, 4x10 seconds at mile effort). I finished this around 7:35, which was just enough time to jog over to the corral, do a few more strides, and then line up.
***
The race started right on time, at 7:45 am. I had lined myself up in the 4th or 5th row back from the front, but still got passed quite a bit from behind in the first half-mile. Which was fine - that's what I had signed up for.
The race course was an out-and-back, with the first half being mostly flat to up-hill, and the second half being the inverse. The worst climb was the first one, which we hit about 400m into the race. It was about 300m running up 6th Street at a 3.5% grade, enough to deliver reality to those who had started too ambitiously. From there, the course had a gentle up and down section (E street), then another climb (4th Street), then another gentle up and down (K Street) and then a climb up North Capitol Street to the turnaround point.
As is my current norm, I felt good and in control on the uphills, but had to focus on the downslopes. So I used the uphills to pass people, and then tried to stay relaxed on the downhills while also maintaining my position. I wasn't great on the downhills, but I was a bit better than I have been.
The race went by pretty quickly (I guess that happens when you race a 5K soon after a half-marathon). Before I knew it, I was at the final drop down 6th Street (the 3.5% grade, going the other way), before the turn to the finish. Frustratingly, I got passed by a few people here - not because of lack of energy or will, but because I could only go down the hill so fast. But once I got down the hill and things flattened out, I was able to manage a decent kick to the finish.
***
Splits (manual, at mile markers) were:
Mile 1: 7:14 (supposedly 1.03 miles long)
Mile 2: 6:57
Mile 3: 6:53 (supposedly 1.04 miles long)
last bit: 41 seconds.
Overall time by my watch was 21:45. I won't have the official time until Monday, because that is how Rock 'n' Roll rolls. [If you want to see same day results, you have to install their app on your cell phone and let it harvest all of your PII. I'll wait a day or two. Thanks.]
I noted my Garmin distance measurements because I'm pretty sure this course was long. This 5K course wasn't certified, and when I measured it out on various distance mapping applications, I got between 3.18 and 3.20 miles. Most Garmin measurements seemed consistent with that too.
My suspicion is that Rock 'n' Roll doesn't really care whether the 5K is accurate - people are going to enter it anyway. Heck, I did. And honestly, since I wasn't doing this for a fitness check or a PR, I'm not that bothered about the inaccuracy, other than it seems a bit ridiculous to charge people $45 or more for a non-certified 5K course, no matter how many fancy balloons you have arching over the course or how many speakers there are blasting music. But at the same time, it is good to know that I (probably) ran this 5K bit faster than I ran my last 5K in February.
[I'm retracting the above statement because I found the certified course this morning on USATF, it must have just been posted. The turnaround in the race was right where it should have been.]
Overall, I'm OK with this one. I ran this race to work on certain things, and I worked on them successfully, so I got what I wanted. And that makes me a bit more confident for Cherry Blossom in two weeks.
Other notes:
- The weather was great, temperature-wise (low 40s). There was a fairly hard wind at times, but I think we were sheltered for a lot of the race, so the wind wasn't a big factor.
- I wore a long sleeve and tights for this race. I was comfortable, but I think I might have been slightly better off with a tank top and tights.
- I experimented with shoes again - this time I went with a non-plated/non-supershoe - the Adios 7. I actually liked it for this distance - I felt more stable and less bouncy so I was able to push-off a bit harder and work a bit harder in this race.
- This was also my first race wearing the big toe spacers - and they felt very comfortable and I totally forgot about them.
- I managed to find my throwaway sweatshirt after the race, so I got to wear that AND my keeper sweatshirt while cheering. Which was good, because it got cold out there.
- I was done with the race a few minutes after 8 am, which gave me an hour+ to kill before cheering for my friends finishing the half-marathon. So I jogged 3 miles to stay warm and kill time. Then I cheered. Then I jogged another 2 miles with a friend to find his mother on course to cheer for her. Then I jogged 2 miles back to my car. And that was how I ended up with 14 miles for the day (4+3+3+2+2=14).
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