Month: August 2022

Excluding a few injury-bound years over the past 35-40 years I have raced or time trialed a mile or 1500m almost every summer. Going back to the mid 1980s I think I missed 1997, 2002 and 2003 due to injury and maybe just skipped 2015 and 2016 because I was focused on other distances. Running a mile all out is a good benchmark, but I don’t always like it.

I actually enjoyed racing the mile from the mid-80s to early 90s, and learned to embrace and channel any pre-race anxiety into excitement and running at top end speed for some four and a half minutes.

However, I was never a star miler, and never even came close to breaking 4 minutes let alone 4:20. My altitude converted all-time best converts to a more modest 4:26.

Colorado Mile Season

July and August are mile season in Colorado. Each week you can find a couple mile/1500 m races on the Front Range. I opted out of some of the bigger ones this year. I started with Boulder Road Runners (BRR) summer track and field series 1500 m on August 4, and the Carnation Mile in the Denver suburb of Wheat Ridge nine days later. The 1500 went better than expected and I decided to enter the mile at final BRR meet on the 18th.

The Carnation Mile

This was a low-key road mile on 38th Avenue in Wheat Ridge, on a point to point course. We had an 8 AM start on one of the hottest weekends of the year. We arrived early and I jogged the course to get a feel for the course. It was fairly flat but had a couple of low grade slopes at about 1/2 mile and at about 3/4 until the final block before the finish. The course only gains 21 feet in elevation, but at 5,400 feet in elevation those small risers were the main factor.

In the middle of my warm up, at about 7:35, the race director announced there would be a delay due to some issues setting up the automatic timer at the finish line. So I wrapped up the last few minutes of drills and strides and waited. 8 o’clock rolled around and passed, she announced they were still working on it. I did not want to have an over extended warm up so like most everyone just stood around waiting, figuring we’d get a 5 minute heads up.

Nope. At 8:15 they said to line up, they were ready to go. I had enough for a quick half block pick up and jog back. Maybe 30 seconds of moving and they lined us up. They had a wave start format, not unlike mid-pandemic, 25 per wave based on estimated finish time. I submitted a 5:30 and was seeded 13th (#13 on the 13th), and was hoping to run mid-low 5:30s and maybe win the masters division and $75.

The race

No gun, and she just said rather quietly on your marks, set, go! We had a wide street to ourselves, and unlike in single or double file as in a track race we were spread out across 60 feet of boulevard.

Former US champion road racer Fernando Cabada (2:11 marathon personal best) took off like he had a rocket pack and everyone followed. Even though I was a ways back I think my first couple hundred meters were fast. By a third of the mile, however, I could feel that my legs were tightening already. And breathing wasn’t great. The finish banner looked no closer than when we started and I knew that the next 3 minutes would not feel good.

I had noted a spot about a half mile from the start but did not check my watch. The banner was still a long way off. At least a minute or more seemed to have gone by and I figured we were approaching 3/4 mile so I did peek at my watch, 0nly 0.64–this was proving to be tough. And I knew I had little or no acceleration in my legs, and lungs were starting to burn.

Up the small incline and I could feel my pace drop off, no doubt to over 6 minute mile pace but there wasn’t much I could do about it. With Cabada far into the lead, a group of about six runners had pulled far ahead and were stringing out. I gradually passed two runners over the final third of the course, but the going was slo-mo. Finally, with just about a 0.1 mile to go, with the finish in sight, and more favorable terrain (flat), I accelerated the best I could.

Aftermath

Finish result: 8th in my heat (would finish 9th for the day as a young high school runner from a later heat ran faster), and 5:42.8. Third masters, and had netted a $25 envelope of cash and three carnations. My time was a good 5-10 seconds slower than hoped, and wow did this hurt more than most races.

I was once scolded by a former elite runner for discussing “hurt” and “pain” in a race, and he said I should coin it more as discomfort. For the most part he was right and for the past 25 years have taken that admonishment to heart. However, within a minute or two after crossing the line–and running through a lot of discomfort over that final half mile–I felt pain. In my stomach, throat, and chest. I started dry-heaving, and then my throat and chest seized with some asthma. The air quality was unfavorable with high ozone that morning and I think that’s what got me.

I couldn’t run for about 20 minutes before being able to jog lightly to the car to use my inhaler. Tamara and I used the winnings for breakfast. By the time I did a mid-day shakeout high up in the foothills, and away from the city air, I felt fine.

Post hoc takedown

This was a fun community event starting on the Carnation Festival parade route, and I hope that the tradition can continue and the race can grow. Offer prize money and good runners will show up!

I was disappointed in the time, and yes a bit surprised to undergo some discomfort that spilled into some actual pain (may 5 on a scale of 10) for 10-15 minutes following the race. I wondered how much faster would have if we had run the opposite direction. Maybe 5:32? 10 seconds seemed like a lot and I didn’t express that out loud, or online.

Boulder Road Runners Track and Field Series Meet #6, Boulder Colorado.

Thursday evening. I had been in a dark funk for the previous 24 hours and that only grew as the day went on. I even posted online that I now hated the mile and it was time to hang it up. I wasn’t having fun.

Arrived at Potts Field at 5:30, it was 85 degrees and sunny, with just a light breeze from the northwest. The CU Boulder campus under the Flatirons is always a nice setting so my mood lifted a little, and a bit better upon along seeing a couple of my teammates. We would be running a 4X400 relay later and that’s actually more what I was looking forward to.

Still, I wasn’t really looking forward to this mile.

I’d be in the slower heat and wasn’t sure what I would do, maybe 5:35-40?

After a warm up and strides, I lined up with the second fastest seed time in this heat, with a young girl on the inside and a 40 year old masters runner who had finished just ahead in the 1500 two weeks earlier. With 19 runners in the field I did not want to get tangled up, so as we waited for last minute instructions I decided to go out quickly for the the first 80-100 meters.

The race

The young girl in lane 1 started quicker than I did over the first 20 m and took the lead, and the masters runner tucked in behind her. I could sense others on my heels but I was firmly in 3rd over the first lap, the pace didn’t feel too fast or too slow. The lap clock was broken and no one was calling splits but I got a quick look at my watch at about 405 meters, and it was just turning to 81. Maybe a bit faster than I had planned but drafting behind others makes the going feel a bit easier. We rounded the third turn and on the backstretch straightaway the masters guy took over the pace, and I followed.

Another masters runner (just turned 60) was right behind me and the announcer said that the three of us were pulling away from the field. I just tried to relax through the second lap. I didn’t get an actual split but my watch timer was at 2:46 at half-way. Sometimes in the mile I feel a burning sensation in my legs on the second lap, as the lactate builds. On Thursday I felt fine and at 900 m in, I could sense that the leader was slowing, so I took over, and just ran to see what I had. Focused on my form and popping off my feet while running relaxed as possible.

I don’t specifically train for the mile, but through much of the year do some 15-20 second pick ups or strides while on a run or just after a set of longer reps or tempo run. So I’m not unfamiliar with the effort and biomechanics, just not used to holding that pace for several minutes at a time.

The sound of footsteps behind had fallen back.

Over the last lap I planned to wind up the pace every 100 m over the last 300, like I did in the 1500 two weeks earlier. But this time there wasn’t much acceleration left so although my effort increased, the pace didn’t. As always for the mile the final 100 meters were grueling.

Post hoc takedown

Crossed the line in 5:26.9. My best mile result since a 5:26 at the Pearl Street Mile in downtown Boulder in 2019. I only ran 5:33 in 2020 (solo time trial) and 5:33 on the track in Denver in 2021. This is encouraging for a number of reasons.

Summer of 2019 was the last time I really felt sharp and in shape, so to run a time in the same ball park now three years later was a surprise. Age grading it’s my best mile ever, 87.74% using 2020 factors, and if you account for the altitude 90.17.

After all of that negative thought for the day leading up to the race, as soon as the starting gun fired I just put it on autopilot and ran by feel.

So now will I quit doing the mile? Ask again next year.

4X400

Doing the end of season 4X400 was the big draw of this meet and the part I most looked forward to. I had more than an hour of recovery. Eight teams lined up under the twilight, most had funny names. At 60+ we were named “No Grabby Hammy” and running a 400 at our age you don’t want to pull anything.

I only have a sketch our splits, as my fancy watch did not record them, but Tim opened with a surprising 62-high. Mark brought it back with combined 2:12, I didn’t get Adam and my split but think it was at about 3:25 when I got the baton and crossed the line with a lap to go. Sprinted for 50 m, eased up a bit for about a 100 and then tried to accelerate slightly. I think I slowed on the homestretch. We crossed in 4:33.9, 5th place, which was about 20 seconds faster than we had anticipated.

Inside outside, leave me alone
Inside outside, nowhere is home
Inside outside, where have I been?
Out of my brain on the five fifteen (The Who)

Following the Bix 7 last weekend I took it easy for a couple days and then overcooked myself on Tuesday, running 16 miles on a morning when the temperature climbed from an already warm 82 degrees t0 90 by the time I finished. I actually felt good through about 13 miles, then things got real as I could feel my core temperature and heart rate rising faster than Jakob Ingebrigtsen finishes a 1500. I did finish it out, but felt nauseous and wrought for the rest of the day.

After an easy double on Wednesday I ran a 25 minute shakeout on the treadmill Thursday morning trying to figure what lap paces to run for the evening’s 1500 m in Boulder. My only sub 6 this year was last weekend’s 5:47 final downhill mile at Bix, so I didn’t know what to expect. Add to that expected temps in the 90s. So figured 87-88 and then bringing it down a bit for the next to laps, with finish of 60 for the final 300. So maybe 5:18-20.

The race was part of the fifth (of six) Boulder Road Runners Summer Track and Field Series, which have been a staple on Potts Field since the early 1980s.

The forecast for Thursday was for a high of 93 in Boulder and about 89 at race time. Nope. At 6:30 PM the temp was 95. But it was a dry 95.

I was not motivated.

My teammate Adam showed up as they made the first call for the 1500 and said, “Be like The Who, 5:15.”

Took me a second because I have listened to that song maybe three times since the year 2000–but it clicked, Out of my brain on the train on the five-fifteen!

The idea was intriguing but that seemed a little fast given the conditions and my less than rested state this week. I didn’t think that was in the cards.

They lined up 10 minutes early and I almost missed final call, doing my last stride out on the homestretch (give me a break, hadn’t run a 1500 since 2010, only the mile). I think there were 13 runners lined up and I was seeded toward the end. Not only was I the oldest by 15 or 20 years, I think I could have been a grand parent to two-thirds of the field, and most of them were young girls 11-14.

Gun went off and I veered to the inside lane, maybe too fast not taking the entire 100 m tangent. Had a stumble as another runner cut in just ahead, he said he was sorry. I checked my watch at a 100 and was 20 sec, way too fast so settled back as the field pulled away. I must have been second or third to last at the lap (84) and a good 15 meters behind the next runners. So even 84 was too fast, especially on such a hot evening, but there I was getting left in the dust by the field.

I did not catch my 800 split but did cross 700 m at 2:28 according to the digital clock. I had picked up one of the young runners, and then another on the next lap. That was about it for passing anyone.

Picked it up slightly with a lap to go and around the curve, but planned only to start kicking with 200 to go. I tapped my watch at three laps (4:15) and set my sights on the next two runners still 15-20 meters up. With 250 to go, I did not feel like going into a full sprint yet so decided to wait until the final 150. On the curve I picked up my knees and cadence and worked into whatever I had for a sprint finish. I didn’t quite catch them but was close!

A volunteer came up an took my tag and showed me her watch time, 5:15!

Out of my brain, following the train!

In spite of the baking temperatures that was actually pretty fun and this month I’ll take two attempts at the mile, hoping for better conditions and with a goal of sub 5:30. An injection of mile pacing should help for longer road and cross country this fall.

Some of this is rehash from another post that I made a few years ago, but it also includes a bit of earlier history of Bix and the Eastern Iowa running scene in the late 1970s. Scroll down to my race report from the race last Saturday.

After 42 years I finally returned to run a classic summer road race, the Bix 7 in Davenport, Iowa. It was a pretty sleepy event in the 1970s, a sidekick to the Bix Jazz Festival. The race grew each year after its inception, and by 1978-79 it would have several hundred entrants with some good local and regional talent. Road racing was growing fast back then, but there were no professional runners nor any prize money at these events, although it was well known that top runners would get under the table appearance money and incentives from sponsors.

The 1980 race put Bix on the map because the Olympic boycott left some runners without much to look forward to. Bix invited the King of the Roads Bill Rodgers that summer and the instantly race tripled in size, to 1,800 finishers. Over the years Rodgers and scores of elite runners returned every July and the race grew to more than 10-times that to over 20,000 and it became a mainstay on the elite professional race circuit.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Eastern Iowa Running Scene (and beyond) – 1970s

The Bix Biederbecke Jazz Festival started in Davenport in the early 1970s and soon after (1974) the race was added. I first heard of the race in 1978, when I was a sophomore in college. I spent the latter half of the summer training in Iowa City, where I had gone to high school. I had started running with a group of former and present University of Iowa runners. With several 4:00 to 4:05 milers in the group, they much more talented than I was (my best at the time were 4:37 for the mile and 9:57 for 2 miles) but they let me tag along a couple times a week. Former Hawkeye Gregg Newell was the social glue to keep the group going, and he mentored me some along the way as I was still pretty new to running. We did some killer workouts on the roads and golf courses around Iowa City and sometimes would go out for a beer afterward.

That summer Gregg got 2nd at Bix to John Lodwick a post-college runner who had grown up in Iowa. Lodwick had placed 8th at Boston that spring with a strong 2:14 (he later went on to run 2:10).

Gregg said he wanted some revenge. He heard that Lodwick and Jeff Wells (2nd to Rodgers at Boston in 1978) would be headlining Armstrong’s Adidas 10K in nearby Cedar Rapids in August. So Gregg got us all fired up to run as a team for Eby’s Sporting Goods, his employer and a rival to the race’s sponsor, the Cedar Rapids-based Armstrong’s Department Store. He got us singlets and we trained as a group at least three times a week.

Race day was in late August and we all ran great. Wells edged out Gregg for the win (28:13 and to 28:19) and Lodwick took 3rd in 28:32, and our Eby’s team took seven of the top ten spots, with me placing 10th in a PR 31:50 (it turns out the course was probably short by 30-40 seconds, but it was still a huge PR as I had only run 5:30 pace for 5 miles on the road the previous fall). Wells and and Lodwick were well known on the road circuit by then and Gregg was on the edge of making it to the big time.

Over the winter of 1979 I went out to Colorado for skiing and planned to stay in Boulder for the summer to train with some college teammates. However, within my first week there–just days before the inaugural Bolder Boulder–I stepped off a curb while running on the CU campus and snapped a bone in my foot. My the summer training plans were shot and I was working a restaurant job I didn’t like, so I gave Gregg a call to see if he had any openings at the new Eby’s branch he was managing in Moline, Illinois just across the Mississippi River from Davenport. He said sure.

So I hobbled up onto a Greyhound bus and headed back east. The company had paid for Gregg’s two bedroom apartment in Moline that year and he was generous enough to let me stay there for the summer.

Gregg raced most weekends and had his own unique training system, running low mileage but higher intensity, with a long run or race, and a of couple tempo runs at 5:00 pace but not much else. He had been a 3:46 1500 m runner at the University of Iowa and had been All-Big Ten a couple of times, but was injured a lot in college. His his low mileage training allowed him to excel on the roads after college (1:01 for 20K) and cross country (All-American) off of probably just 20-30 miles a week.

During the summer of 1979 Lodwick and Wells were not in the area, but Gregg had some good local competition. In July he came back for Bix and this time he won! He had gone to high school in Davenport won the state meet in the mile in 1972 (4:12) and was something of a local hero.

A few weeks later I went back to my college and after that only saw Gregg a few more times. He was always positive and encouraging.

The next summer I got into the best shape of my life training or a marathon in Wisconsin, and ran a 1:09 20K just the week before. Against my better judgement my teammate convinced me that long run the following day would be good training for our upcoming marathon (Paavo Nurmi in Hurley, Wisconsin). The run was torture, and felt a popping in my hip. Bix was just a week later but to go Bix anyway. I did not run much that week hoping my hip would get better. I hitched a ride to Davenport from Madison and stayed with Gregg. I ran the race at a tempo effort (5:40s) but the hip was only worse, so had to take some time off.

With Rodgers and several other top runners in the field Gregg did not win in 1980, but was 6th. Rodgers was a huge draw for the race, and afterward he spent more than an hour in a packed auditorium taking questions from everyday runners. From that day on Bix became a big name race, largely due to its partnership with Rodgers.

Moving On

I saw Gregg only once or twice after that visit. In the fall our cross country team had a meet in nearby Monmoth, Illinoisand we had lunch at the same mall where Gregg worked, so we stopped by the store.

He looked at me an laughed, saying “Look what the wind brought in.” He also showed up to our Division III Regional cross country meet in Rock Island in November. We maybe stayed in touch here and there with a card, but I did not return to Iowa much after college and not to the Quad Cities at all.

Later I learned that Gregg had passed away in 1989, at just 34 years old. That was very sad news, as he was very kind and giving and loved nothing more than to share his running with others.

The Quad Cities running community respected Gregg and his loss was hard on many people. Bix remembered him. They retired the bib number 5 because he had five top ten finishes at the race, and they created the Gregg Newell award given every year to the fastest runner from the Quad Cities.

The Return 2022

I had only been though the Quad cities a couple times since the 1980 but hadn’t stopped in. It all looked familiar last week, maybe more run-down due to the ensuing economic downturns (the 1980s Farm Crisis, 2008 recession, Covid). After picking my bib, we stayed in Rock Island, just mile from the start. Rock Island in particular seemed hard hit.

Race day dawned pleasant in the low 60s with high clouds, by race time the temperature had climbed to 69 degrees with a dew point of about 65–extremely good for Bix. I lined up near the front of the second corral, just behind the elites. They held us there for what seemed a long time before counting down.

I planned on pacing myself up the infamous Brady Street hill (1/3 of a mile at 9% grade), only accelerating over the top and into the second mile. I think I did that pretty well, with a 6:28 first mile split just after the first couple of turns onto Kirkwood Avenue, a wide tree-lined boulevard that winds back toward the Mississippi over the 2.5 miles.

If I made a mistake on Saturday it might have been pushing that 2nd mile too hard, as I caught my instantaneous splits at 5:50 or faster a few times (plan had been to maintain 6:00-6:10), that was 5:57. Through half way I settled and maintained about 6:20 pace, dreading the two big climbs on the return. First one after 3.5 was hard and I split 4 at 25:13, a little off from goal pace (25:00 would have been about where I would like to be), but I wasn’t thinking too much about that, because I knew the next two miles would be very challenging with a gradual (2-3%) but relentless ascent. Those splits were 6:33, and 6:34 and I dropped as many places as I had made up.

I recovered quickly once we crested at 6 miles (I heard 38:10), and tried to open it up over the fast descent and flat finish on 2nd Avenue. That was a fun stretch and I picked up a few spots to finish in 44:07 (6:18/mile). So not too far off my self-seeded 6:15, but a bit more than my higher end goal of sub 6:10.

I really enjoyed making the return to Bix 7 and hope to come back, maybe go for the age group record next year (new age group!). I also spent some time reflecting on those early days and of course the positive influence of my old friend Gregg.