Out of the Wind Into the Teeth

3/16/2008

This is the part of the season where you can start to get a measurement of your conditioning. The early spring races help to guage your conditioning and also provide shorter distances to ease you off of the longer base building. This year the first race is the St. Patricks Day race.

Last year the St. Pats Race was one of the best ever. The race started and ended in Downtown Wichita, with the beer tent at one of Wichita’s best irish bars not but 10 steps away. The course took you through one of Wichita’s best parks, over brick streets, and back to the bar. The weather was even great, sunny and warm.

This year the St. Pat’s race was used to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Army Reserve. The reserve folks did a great job of hosting the race at their facility on McConnell Air Force Base, with plenty of food and some interesting scenery along the course. There were only a few things that can be improved for next year. As Jess McNeely jokingly suggested might happen during our warm up, they had a little screw-up that made the race one for the memory books.

It all started out with some pretty dower weather which only helped to make the race more of an adventure. At five minutes to go for the gun, I dropped off my jacket and pants with the ladies working the registration tent. One of them actually stated “oh my God” when I started stripping down. That comment was not in reference to my studly physic, but was a commentary about my clothing selection – a race singlet and racing shorts ha. I responded that it wasn’t snowing yet, so this was nothing ha.

The cannon blasted out the start of the race and the crowed was off and racing around the Air Museum collection of rusting airplanes like a heard of wild deer started by a hunters gun. We cleared the first gate providing entry to the AFB without any problems, the guard clearly freezing with the wind whipping her unprotected position near the gate. Easing into the race, I caught up to McNeely just out from the first mile. At that point, we headed north and then due east toward the runway. As the runway came into view I noticed something was amiss. The gate was closed and folks in military camifogue were excitedly working to get it to open.

Soon the first place runner, second place, and others were quickly stacking up behind the gate. The people working on the fence grabbed a huge set of bolt cutters and quickly set about snapping the galvanized chain. It took three or four healty pulls on the cutters before one of the soldiers was able to break the chain and set the runners on their way. Of course, we had another momentary pause while waiting for the soldiers to discover that the fence slid open, and did not swing open ha.

With approximately 30 runners tied for first and more coming quickly, everyone raced out of the opened black chain link fence (with barbed wire atop). With the wind at our back, we raced down the huge vast open concrete runway. The openness of it all was astounding to me, even as I was struggling to keep my breath and catch up to the runner in front of me.

Soon a truck caught up to us and zoomed past the first place runner. About a half mile down the runway, they stopped the truck and retrieved the cargo, one large orange cone. Fortunately, they got everything setup for the turn around in time for the first place runner to make the turn. All the rest of us followed soon enough. By that point I had caught up to a bunch of folks on the runway and was now running in second place.

Turning the corner at the cone was like hitting the wall. The wind nearly stopped me in my tracks. We had been running for nearly a mile with the wind, now we had an uprotected run against the cold north Kansas wind. Eventually I dropped back to conserve my energy and let Jess and another guy take the lead. To my surprise five other guys tagged along for the ride and were using Jess as the lead to pull everyone else along.

As soon as we hit the gate we turned and got a break from the wind. Some runners split off from the group, others had become so used to running in a line against the wind that they stayed right behind the guys in front of them. The group was tight all the way to the Air Museum. Eventually, we broke up right before the finish line, with a few seconds between folks. I captured sixth place right behind a middle schooler from hell. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about that kid in the future.

Overall it was a wonderful race and it showed that folks are in pretty good shape for this time of year. I’m excited to see what this spring and summer will bring. Now it’s just a matter of building on where we are today and adding a little speed to the mix at the weekly track practices.

The race results are posted on the Run Wichita website
www.runwichita.org/race_results.php

Today was another adventure, and it wasn’t just the wind that had a bite to it today.

We started out about 1:15 (I was running late) from the NW YMCA. It had to be no more than 43 degrees outside, with a strong northeast wind at about 20 mph. Of course, I dressed to lightly for this type of thing (it’s hard to judge when you’re using hot blooded running as gauge for how to dress). Needless to say I was getting frostbite by the time we decided to turn around about 9 miles into the ride. (I’ve got to get some of those black booties).

Before the turn around, I almost got bit in the ass. The largest farm dog I’ve ever seen showed up out or nowhere, those little b$##% always pop up from behind bushes and other scrub leading down the driveway. You never see them until they’re on you. The thing was practically a shaggy horse (it came up to my top tube on the bike).

Fortunately, It went after the guys in front and so I had a chance to time riding by just enough to shake the thing. Of course, the goat roper owners came out to try and call home the hound of death. As always, this occurs about a minute or two too late ha. Needless to say, it was a little bit of an adrenaline rush that helped to warm me up for the ride back to the Y.

Oh, the fun March training rides. Next time I’ll just have to remember to bring a saddle and milk bones!