Cotton Row Run 2015

This year's Cotton Row Run was a somewhat similar to all the previous ones I've blogged about running - I was injured prior to the start of the race.

But this time I didn't have a pulled muscle or cramped up calf. This time I had stepped on a steel dumbbell and bruised the crap out of the ball of my foot. This happened a week ago and I was partially healed from it. I still have enough of a limp that I wasn't sure if I should even attempt to run. I made my decision at what I thought was the last possible minute. I jumped into my car and drove as fast as I could to the race.

When I got there and as I was running to the starting line, some guy passed me going away from the race. I assumed he had run the 10K race. It starts 2 hours before the 5K that I run and should have finished already. When we passed he turned and said "hey, they've delayed the start of the race. A tree fell across the course somewhere and they delayed the race by one hour. Your race doesn't start until 10 am." I wasn't sure whether to believe him or not, but I kept on running to my start line.

When I reached the start, sure enough, the 10K race was still going on. I was forced to stand around for an hour and twenty minutes before my own race even began to line up at the start. Once we were lined up and ready to run, the founder of the race took the microphone and talked to us, sang at us, pledged allegiance with us, and bugled us for another 20 minutes. At this point I had been standing up for nearly 2 hours. Finally they fired the starting gun and we were off.

At first I was preoccupied with swerving through the maze of slow people, walking people, and people I just have no idea why they were in our way at all. Finally I made my way into a crowd of runners who were moving along at the same pace as I was. But right away people were stopping to walk. And then I noticed that my own legs felt like rubber. They felt like ... like I had already run every event in a track meet and was ready to get on the bus and go home. My legs were shot!

I kept plodding along, thinking that at any minute my body would adjust and I'd be warmed up. Then the feeling of weakness and shakiness would pass. Then I would run like normal. I was already moving at the pace I wanted. I finished the first mile at 9 minutes and 20 seconds. That's not fast by anyone's measure, but after so many injury-wrecked races and so much trouble with my legs, all I wanted to do was get back under that 30 minute mark where normal people run. 3 sub-10-minute miles would give me my very attainable goal. This should not be that hard.

But as I passed that 1 mile marker and they shouted my time to me, I could not escape the miserable feeling in my legs. They were simply shot. They had no strength at all. They felt as if I were suffering from the flu and needed to go lie down with some orange juice and a bowl of soup.

At the 1 1/2 mile marker they had set up a water station. I slowed to grab a cup. My legs wobbled badly. And then the worst happened - I stopped running and walked. This is something I would never have done back in the days when I ALWAYS ran well under 30 minutes in every 5K and I NEVER walked for any reason. I walked for maybe 20-30 seconds, hoping to shake off the weakness in my legs. Hey, when I fartlek a 10 second walk gives me enough of a rest to blast into a much faster pace than I was currently running. Sure, I'd walk again at some point after that, only to sprint again afterwards, but I always had the strength and energy to keep doing it over and over again. 

Not this time. I started running again. My legs still felt like rubber. I ran and ran, but tried adjusting my pace to something a little slower. Maybe I just needed to ease up a bit and that'd fix the problem.

Nope. I had to stop and walk again after the 2 mile mark. And one more time after that. At the start of the 3rd mile I still had plenty of opportunity to kick it up and finish under 30 minutes. My brain knew this. But my legs weren't even going to pretend that this was a possibility. I ran the 3rd and final mile as fast as my wobbly Weeble-like legs would allow, and I even felt at the final stretch as if I might puke. But my speed was ... lacking.

 

As I crossed the finish line the clock over my head read 33 minutes and 20 seconds. It was an epic fail. One full year of injury-plagued training had gained me absolutely nothing in this race. I could have run this time without training at all. After I crossed the finish I felt as if my legs were going to literally crumble underneath me. I struggled not to fall to the pavement. This was ridiculous!

So now I have a question for anyone still reading this blog, anyone who just happened by, anyone who is a runner or any sort of athlete and has something resembling an educated opinion about this. I didn't sleep well the night before the race. And I didn't sleep well the night before that. I don't know if that mattered. But I do think that the hour and a half or so minutes that I spent standing and standing and oh-my-God more standing took a lot out of my legs. In fact, I think it turned my legs into blocks of useless wood. Whenever I have to spend hours shopping my legs and my lower back wear out, my bum knee swells, and I feel a powerful urge to go sit in a leather booth and drink something cold and mostly unhealthy. So what do you think? Does standing on your feet for over an hour without a break, prior to a race, take a lot out of your legs? Do you think this is what went wrong for me?

I wish there was a forum somewhere for people who ran this race to talk. If there were I'd ask them. But as I don't know of any, I'm asking you. Any opinions?

Cotton Row Run 2014

Race day has come and gone. I ran it yesterday. It was a hot and humid day. I had set small goals for this race. I had good reasons for that with my recent record of injuries. Even so, I was somewhat disappointed.

After 2 straight years of limping across the finish line of the Cotton Row's 5K race with a painfully shredded calf muscle I was encouraged by people close to me to lower my goals here and simply try to finish this event without any injuries. That includes all my training and the race itself since both previous years I was injured while training and had to focus on rehabbing the injury enough to be able to race at all instead of working on improving my speed and time. The results were embarrassing race times of over 30 minutes for a 3.1 mile race. For a person who has never run competitively that might be a time they can accept. For me it is humiliating.

The Cotton Row Run was started as a 10K race, 6.2 miles of Alabama heat and asphalt, with an obstacle they call "heart attack hill" thrown in somewhere between miles 3 and 4 just for fun. At some point, with the rising popularity of 5K races, they shifted the 10K race back an hour to 7 am and added a 5K race at 9 am. When I was young I ran the 10K and was competitive in terms of my times. But even then, had they fired their starting gun at 7 am I wouldn't have been there in time to compete. I'm no morning person, never was and never will be. So these days the 10K is out of the question for me. As injury-prone as I am at 9 am I would be worse if I tried to run while barely awake and poorly warmed-up at 7 am.

Anyway, I don't want to summarize this race for a third time. I wrote about as many details of the race as I could recall in 2012 and 2013. It's hot. There are a number of annoyingly selfish participants who get in the front of the starting line and walk when the starting gun sounds. They walk in the middle of the road, blocking all the runners just like I'm sure they drive in the passing lane at excessively slow speeds and refuse to get over or let anyone by. Each year these narcissistic 'runners' have increased in number and selfishness. This year was the worst. At one point 5 girls stood shoulder to shoulder all the way across the road blocking the entire course. Real runners started abandoning the street and running on the sidewalks. That is technically against the rules, but if the race officials aren't going to enforce their own rules against blocking runners and all that they clearly aren't going to enforce rules against leaving the course and running down the sidewalks. Eventually all the real runners were streaming down either side of the course on the sidewalks while the narcissistic obstructionists were in the center of the road, blocking everyone.



Let's get in the middle of the race course and walk

At one point I had a woman race up to get next to me, then jam her shoulder in front of me to block me from passing her. I sped up, stepped around her and got ahead. She sped up and jammed her shoulder in again. She did this 3 times. Finally, I put my hand up to stiff arm her away from me, but she fell back and was never able to catch up with me again. You can maneuver to block runners in a track meet, but in a friendly 5K race with a full street you are not allowed to do that crap. She was unfortunately what I'm increasingly seeing among the up and coming generation of 'entitled' runners. I quit soccer due to injuries and people like her. I noticed that this year's Cotton Row Run had the fewest runners I've ever seen this year in both events, the 10K and the 5K. I'm wondering if more real runners are quitting this race for the same reason - selfish pricks who would rather hurt others than compete.

My first mile split time was 10:30. That was the pace I had planned to run. It was slower than my previous 2 years, but I was trying a new strategy. My second mile split was 21 something. I don't recall, but it was right on schedule. I was trying to conserve energy and avoid injury prior to the third mile. I hoped that by doing this I would have more energy to speed up on the final mile and sprint the final stretch and across the finish line. This is how I used to run. I always had a last burst of energy for the final 100 yards. Of course, I often puked as I crossed the finish line, but my times were good and it was working for me. My final mile was often my fastest. I was also relatively injury-free, which helped. This year I hoped to get back to that strategy again.

I trained for this race for about 6 weeks, running 3 and 4 times per week. Several times I came extremely close to a serious injury, usually involving my calf and once, just last week, involving my hamstring. I started off blasting into my training, focusing on speed work and expecting to simply work up to the distance as I went. But with so many close calls I was encouraged to lower my expectations. Several people suggested that I simply aim to finish this race without being injured. I don't know if I made the right decision or not, but I decided to listen to them. I stopped doing speed work and simply ran my distance with a steady increase in speed until I reached the pace I wanted to run the entire race at, and then held it there to the end for each workout. This seemed like a safe way to train. Given enough time I think it could work. Maybe. Either way, one thing I know for sure is that I wasn't even going to show up to the starting line if I was already injured on race day like I was the past 2 years.

It was hot. During the 10K race the sky was cloudy and the sun was blocked. This helped keep things cooler, not that it was comfortable exactly. But by 9 am at the start of the 5K race the clouds were clearing out. We had full sun. It quickly got hot. The weather channel says it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know the humidity level, but it was unpleasant.



This was NOT how it looked when I got to the water station

One thing I did during this race, which I can't explain exactly, was a big mistake. I don't know what I was thinking. After mile 1 there was a water station. With all the obstructionists on the course, they stopped at these water stations, took a cup of water, and stood there in the way so other runners couldn't get water. So when I came to the first water station, I had to stop, reach over someone standing in the way, and grab a cup of water. At that point I was at a dead stop, not running at all. I sipped my water as I walked away from the crowd of people standing around the water station. Yes, walked. I sipped only what I needed, then dumped the rest over my head, and began running again. I did this again at the 2nd water station, coming to a complete stop in order to get to the water. I've never done this before, stopping and then walking for a period before running on. I don't know how to explain why I did it this year when I had no injury and could have potentially run a quicker time than the past 2 years. I wasted probably a full minute doing this.

Up ahead of me a runner suffered heat stroke. People said he came down the final stretch flopping all over like a rag doll. He wobbled and stumbled and weaved and teetered with a wild look on his face. When he crossed the finish line 2 paramedics caught him just as he collapsed.

On the third mile I was feeling the heat. I was a lot more tired than I should have been considering I wasn't running an exceptionally fast pace up to that point. I was starting to droop, feeling my back weakening and encouraging me to lean forward. My form was breaking. There are no real hills of any significance on the 5K course, just little inclines here and there along the way. By the third mile those little inclines were straining me. This was the point where I had planned to be stretching out my stride, speeding up ever so slightly, and cutting at least a full minute off my mile pace, if not two or three.

It wasn't happening. I felt as if I was holding my pace well enough, perhaps slowing just a bit, but not too bad. My first mile was a 10:30. My second nearly a flat 10. If my third mile matched my first I should still be able to shoot for a 31 minute time. It'd be 1 minute and 1 second too slow, but still better than my worst time, which was 33:15 two years ago in the 2012 Cotton Row. My second worst time was 31 flat in last year's Cotton Row, so it wasn't looking good for me even equaling that anymore. And forget about my goal of coming in under 30 minutes.

I spent the last mile struggling to hold my form, control my breathing, and try my best to at least hold my speed when I felt like slowing down. I should have been going faster, but it just wasn't happening. At the final tenth of a mile I kicked it up with what little I had left. I stretched out my stride and 'sprinted' across the finish line. I didn't even bother looking at the clock. I knew my time was crap. I just didn't know how bad it was yet.

 

The race organizers seemed to take forever to finally post my time up on the wall. I almost wished they hadn't. It was an all-time slow 33:45, my worst ever.



Epic Fail

All I can say about this race is that I achieved my revised goal - I finished the race uninjured. I'm not sure if it was worth it or not. Even limping so badly that I didn't think I could run the last mile I ran a 31:00 last year. Maybe I just run better when I'm hurt?

My training goals for this race were too conservative. Aiming for a negative goal like not getting injured encourages you to hold back when you should be pushing harder. Somewhere in the middle should be my training target - not too aggressive and not too conservative, not insane and not completely lame. Basically I need to be pushing it hard, but not so hard that I get injured.

I'm supposed to run again tomorrow. I think after this disaster I'm going to have to pick up the pace and find me another race to run to see if I can redeem myself before the summer is over. The only other race I'm signed up for at the moment is the Warrior Dash, and Lord knows that isn't going to be a race time I can do anything with. Besides the uniqueness of the course, it recently involved killer hills that are a completely different challenge for me, one that I want to beat this time.

1 Week to Race Day

With only one week to go until the Cotton Row Run I've been trying to keep my training light, with minimal risk for injury. Today I ran the usual 3 miles at a cautious pace. I steadily sped up until the end, as usual. Everything was fine until the last half mile. As is apparently typical of my luck, suddenly my hamstring started to tighten up. I had wanted to go faster, but my hamstring kept getting tighter and my low back stiffened up, too. I almost stopped running early just to make SURE I didn't pull my hamstring.

I finished my 3 miles and immediately slowed down, did my cool down, and stretched my hamstrings, lower back and calves. As I walked across the parking lot to my car I could feel my damn hamstring tweaking the entire way. I ended up limping to the car. It doesn't even feel like I ever really pulled it. It never popped or screamed or burned and tore. It just tightened. It tightened until I was limping, which is pretty much what an injury looks like.

So I'm home now. I drank my protein and various other recovery-oriented chemicals. I massaged the hamstring. And I've got an ice pack under both hamstrings. I realize only one of them is hurt, but with my luck I figure there's no point in taking any chances. I'm icing them both.

The Mayo Rudolph Show

Other than that tremendously exciting new, I'm watching the Maya Rudolph Show, which is brand new. It appears to be a modern version of the old Carol Burnett Show, but she's got a lot of super talented people so it just might work. Well, except there's way too much singing. Speaking of all the singing, Kristin Bell is on the show and she can sing like crazy. I mean, she's honestly incredibly good.

So that's really all I have to say for now. My hamstring appears to be very close to injured. I guess I'll know for sure tomorrow when I try to get out of bed. Until then, I think I'll Google Kristen Bell for awhile and see where it takes me.

Cotton Row Run 5K 2013

OK, so all my training, the running and the biking and the treadmill workouts, were for this race, the Cotton Row Run. The 10K started at 7 am. I know me and there is no way I'm going to be on the starting line of any race at 7 am. To be honest, I wouldn't be at the church for my own wedding at 7 am. I am not a morning person and I know this about myself. Thus, I do not commit to running a race that starts at 7 am.  I used to run the Cotton Row 10K back in The Day when it started at 8 am and was the only event, but once they added the 5K they apparently felt obliged to shove the 10K back an hour to 7 am and then start the 5K at 9 am, giving the 10K runners enough time to finish their race and get the heck out of the way for the next one.

So, my running was doing great up until about a month ago. I ran the fastest 5K time I had done in a number of years, but while on a treadmill which enabled me to time it exactly. Still, it was faster than I've been lately. After that, though, I had bad knee pains and was forced to begin biking in order to let my knee recover. When I was able to return to running, I was outside on the pavement. And I was really, really slow. Or at least that's how it felt. I didn't have a clock in front of me to tell me exactly how fast I was going like I do on a treadmill. But it sure felt slow.

For a month straight I did everything in my power to dodge knee injuries and calf injuries and any other injuries that tried to spring up and sabotage my training, all while finding ways to continue to train without stopping.

And then I decided to fartlek. And because I hadn't sprinted in awhile I suppose my calves weren't really ready for it. They felt extremely tight afterwards and I even stopped my workout just to make sure I didn't reinjure either calf.

Last year I had badly injured my left calf while training for this same race. It took forever to get back to a point where I could run again, and even then I had to be VERY careful not to run too fast or I'd reinjure it. This left me running races at a pace that wasn't at all competitive, but was the fastest I could go without blowing my calf again. I ran 2 races that way and it wasn't fun. My times were shameful, but I couldn't do much about it.

So fartleking made my calves tighten up badly. But they weren't injured. My arches in my feet and my calves were both sore for a solid week after. I biked a lot. I ran carefully. Less than a week before my race, I did a slow and careful run, then went home and stretched.

It was while stretching my calves after cautious run that my left calf said, "oh hey, did you feel that? Yeah, I'm hurt again. Booya!"  Yep, my left calf hit me with a distinctive needle-like pain of an injury not while I was running, but while I was home carefully stretching my tight calf muscles after a run. It was just a brief pain, but a distinctly familiar one. And it was 4 days before my race.

I should have iced it right away. But I didn't. I walked around the house carefully feeling out my calf and didn't think it was too bad. It was just a little sore. Maybe I was OK? Just to be sure, I tore the house apart searching for my protective calf sleeves. I knew where they SHOULD be, but when I looked they weren't there. I found the package that they came in, but they were empty. I shouted to no one in particular, "WHY DID I KEEP THE PACKAGE IF I WASN'T GOING TO PUT THE SLEEVES BACK IN THEM?!" And then I resumed my frantic search.

It wasn't until late Friday night, as I was packing for the trip to Huntsville, that I finally found my calf sleeves. I'm ashamed to admit that they were both buried under some crap I'd left in the floor of the bedroom since this time last year, just after the Cotton Row Run 2012. I came home and apparently put my bag of Cotton Row swag in the floor over against the wall, with the calf sleeves inside, and then laid something else on top of the bag and forgotten it.

Saturday came and off to Huntsville I went. I spent 2 days taking it easy and meeting with friends. Then came Memorial Day on Monday and it was race day at last!

9 am Monday morning, there I was standing in a massive crowd of runners. A team of black people all dressed in identical pink uniforms lined up behind me. They kept taking pictures and I couldn't help but notice that I was unintentionally photobombing every single one because I was taller than they were and they had chosen to line up for their photos with me standing right behind them. Hey, not my fault. And anyway, those pictures are probably the only photographic evidence that I was even there.

OK, 10 minutes of blah blah blah while we all stood there, hopping up and down, stretching, flexing, trying desperately to keep our muscles loose and warmed up while one person after another took the microphone and talked or sang or blew a trumpet. And then finally - BANG! The starting gun went off and the race started. There were so many people lined up ahead of me that it took a little bit before I was able to move forward and eventually jog across the starting line and begin the race.

Mile 1 - there was a woman reading off the 1 mile time - 9:27. I didn't feel like I was running very fast, but 9:27 was faster than I expected. Yes, I KNOW that a 9 minute and 27 second first mile is not at all fast by any definition of fast. But it was faster than I felt I was going. So far so good. But I really needed a water station. I didn't get enough water before lining up for the start. My throat was dry and I was really feeling it.

Mile 2 - somewhere along the way I hit a water station. I should have guzzled that whole cup of water, but its hard to swallow a cup filled with water while running and I didn't want to stop just to drink it. So I took a few sips to make my throat feel better and then tossed the cup. I nearly hit someone. "Sorry dude." The skies had been overcast all morning and the 10K race was run under nice cool conditions. Lucky people. But the sun came out in full force just in time for the start of the 5K and I was feeling it. I felt myself slow down considerably for mile 2. I was afraid I was barely moving, but I kept going. At the end of mile 2 someone with a stop watch read out a time of 21 minutes. OK, I had slowed way too much, but overall I was still on track. After last year's worst ever time of nearly 34 minutes I just wanted to get back to my old bad times of under 30 for a 5K. That was my only goal for this year's race. I would run the last mile faster like I usually do and I'd make up that extra time. Everything was fine.

Mile 3 - just after I crossed over the mile 2 point my left calf said "BAM! I'm outta here."  OK, to be fair, my left calf had been steadily complaining to me the entire race. During mile 1 it wasn't so bad. Plus I was distracted with the task of getting my pace established, dodging people who oddly chose to walk right in the middle of the road and block runners, and trying not to fall over children who run up in front of you only to suddenly stop and then randomly begin running again. The pain was there, but very faint. During mile 2 it was worse and I was focusing all my attention on trying not to reinjure it. That was part of the reason I slowed down during mile 2. And now, with 1.1 mile left to go, my calf decided it was done with this race and wasn't going to finish with the rest of me.

Just like last year, I began to limp badly. Just like last year, I wasn't sure if I was going to have to stop and walk or even move to the curb and sit down. Just like last year, I kept limping along trying desperately to work out some of the pain and make my calf loosen up enough to let me finish this race. My limping was pretty extreme.  But after limping for what seemed like an eternity I finally managed to loosen my calf up enough to force myself into a normal stride. I couldn't do anything about my speed. I couldn't afford to speed up. So I just focused on my form and my stride. I tried to run with perfect form, and when that didn't hurt too badly then I slowly began to think about extending my stride a little bit. It was the only way I could make up some time and pick up speed. I couldn't afford to go up on my toes at all, so lengthening my stride was all I could do, just so long as my calf didn't bail on me again.

The last mile of the Cotton Row 5K is annoying, because there is a long stretch that creates the illusion of being the final straightaway. You can see well down the street, and somehow it appears that the end is within sight. But it isn't. It's just a 90 degree right turn down a short street and then another 90 degree left turn onto another street. And THAT street is the final straightaway. And THAT final straightaway is also an illusion, because you can see a big American flag hanging from a metal beam that marks the starting line where we all began. Most races that double back on themselves start and finish at the same point, on the same line. But not this race.

A lot of runners start to speed up on the first false straightaway, only to realize their mistake and almost stop altogether and walk. Others don't fall for the first false straightaway, but turn onto the last stretch and, because they can SEE what appears to be the finish line, they start to give it all they've got. It is a LONG way down that final straightaway before you even reach the original starting line, the false finish. A long, long way. Most people have a 100 meter sprint left in them at the end of a long race. Few people have a 400 meter sprint in them, and even fewer have longer than that. This last stretch of road is well over 400 meters long. The people still running in this race by the time I reach it are not the sort of people who have a 400+ meter sprint in them after running over 2 miles already. Even in my heyday, back when I was running 5Ks in 18 minutes or less, I would speed up a lot for the last mile, but I didn't have a 400-800 meter sprint in me. Those people who turn down the last straightaway and break into a sprint at the sight of the distant starting line die well before the finish, often reduced to walking and losing everything they'd hoped to gain from their sprint.

My calf was not doing well, but it wasn't as bad as it had been earlier when I first pulled up limping. My lengthened strides were working out alright for me. The extreme limping had taken a lot out of me, though, and I didn't have much sprint left in me. I strided down the long, agonizing straightaway until I crossed under the original starting line banner and then I stretched out my stride and gave it all I could with my gimpy calf and my other leg totally worn out from doing all the work while I limped so badly. I looked desperately for the time clock at the finish line as I crossed it. It was there, but it appeared to be turned off. I couldn't see a time at all.

All I had wanted for this year's run was to get back under the horribly embarrassing 30 minute mark. Last year, with absolutely everything going against me, I had the worst run of my entire life, nearly hitting 34 minutes. This year I felt sure I hadn't done as bad as that, but I was afraid that my injury had sabotaged my hopes of getting back under 30. In fact, I was sure of it. Even so, I still wanted to know just what time I had run. Surely it had to be better than last year.

There is a computer chip in our race numbers and it records our time for us. This enables the race coordinators to print out and post times almost immediately. Even so, to me it felt like I waited forever for them to finally post my time. I limped over to the white sheets of computer paper taped to the wall of the Civic Center and made me way through the crowd of runners all searching the pages for their times. It took awhile, but I finally found mine

31 minutes

Ah hell. That limping along easily ate up a minute of my time. It slowed me down so badly. If not for that I'd have made my goal. There was no doubt. So now I have this recurring calf injury to deal with. Two years in a row it has affected my races. It concerns me that it is back a full year later, the exact same injury. I don't want to have to be worrying about this next year when I run this race again. I want to be free to focus on my pace and give it all I've got. I'd like to be able to focus on getting well under the 30 minute mark and start moving to the lower end of the 20s again. But instead I have this to deal with.

I can't help wondering, if only I hadn't run the sprints so close to the race, after not having run sprints for such a very long time, if this wouldn't have happened at all. I don't think running sprints is a bad thing. I think I need to do more of it. I just think my muscles weren't ready for it because I hadn't been doing it consistently and hadn't done it at all in quite a long time. Perhaps, once I have this healed again, I can try to include sprints once a week in my regular workouts and strengthen my weak muscles enough that when this race comes around again next year I won't have to worry about this particular injury again? That would sure be nice. It seems like its been a very long time since I was last able to run a race without any injuries to worry about along the way.

 

Cotton Row Run / Limp

Monday was Memorial Day here in the United States. And Memorial Day is race day for me and everyone else entered in the Cotton Row Run. This is the race I had been trying to train for, but struggling with calf injuries. I've never had a problem with calf injuries in the past. This is something new to me. Apparently my calves wanted to make up for lost time with a vengeance because they've given me hell over the last 2 months.

Two months ago I hurt my left calf while training for the Cookie Dash 5K. I thought it was just a cramp so I kept on running. The next day my calf was in extreme pain. I tried to rehab the calf and continue my training, but the decision of whether to race or not came down to the day of the race and even then I was unsure. I started that race slow and remained slow for the entire course. I finished with a lousy time, but I finished without reinjuring my calf, so I called it a minor victory and basically a training run that just happened to include 499 other runners along with me.

2 weeks later, while running, my right calf started to hurt. "What the hell??" I stopped immediately, but it was still giving me problems days later. Throughout my training for the Cotton Row my calves were an issue. They just never seemed to be right somehow. Along with my calves, my left hamstring, right where it attaches at my knee, has been spasming like it wants to pull, too. It does this at the oddest times, like when I'm stepping over a pile of crap in my bedroom or something, rather than while I'm out running.

Monday at the starting line of the Cotton Row I was wearing a calf sleeve on my right calf. I considered wearing one on both calves just to be on the safe side, but I ended up not doing it. It was hot and humid, but not as hot as it was last year when this race nearly killed me. Overall I felt pretty good. I was planning to average not-so-spectacular 10 minute miles and try to come in as close to 30 minutes on the nose as possible.



I am in there somewhere

The start of the race was surprisingly disorganized. The race announcer never ordered the runners to get behind the starting line before the race began like they had last year. He also never warned the slower runners and the people planning to start out walking to get over to the side and out of the way of the runners who came to actually run and compete. Consequently, the race started with a significant number of runners ahead of the starting line.

Our race numbers included a strip containing a computer chip which records the exact moment we start and again when we finish, to make sure our times are precise. How they deal with runners who started ahead of the line I have no idea. Maybe they just use the official race start as their start time and don't account for the fact that they were 10 to 20 feet ahead of the line at that point? I don't know.

The start

Once the gun sounded, I was jammed into a pack of people trying to get moving. It was like crowding onto a subway car in New York City. There was no room to really move and get going. The people who simply walked at the start, I hate to say it, but they were selfish jackasses to be out there in the center of the road starting up at the front of the pack in everyone's way doing something like that. People tripped over them and while trying to get past them. If I had been injured trying to get past walkers at the start I might've been tempted to take a swing at one of them. Luckily that didn't happen. But getting past all of them, and there were a lot, was very frustrating. Every race has walkers, but this was the first time I'd ever seen walkers line up at the head of the pack in the center of the road like that.

The first half mile was nothing but runners trying to get away from the slow people jamming us all up. One woman next to me shouted in exasperation, "this is like a blood clot or something!" I knew exactly what she meant and I agreed.

Cotton Row Crash

The first mile I really didn't feel like I was running especially fast. I hadn't fully warmed up before the race because I was a little later than I intended getting there. I didn't have a good sweat going before the gun sounded. I ran the first half mile with my water bottle in my hand and continued to water up a little at a time while I struggled through the massive 'blood clot' of slow people and people who oddly chose to line up at the start only to mysteriously stop running at the beginning of the race and walk, causing collisions with the people running behind them who weren't expecting anyone in a race as big and competitive as the Cotton Row to walk within the first half mile. What is wrong with people that they never even think about all the other competitors who signed up for this race and paid their money to run while they, the novices, line up at the front and block everyone else? Is this the newest thing for passive/aggressive drivers, the newest frontier, to move into competitive races and try to jam everyone up out of a twisted desire to screw the world over?

Once I was past the majority of walkers and jog/walk/jog people, I began trying to settle into a pace where I felt comfortable. At the first mile marker they called out 10:15 at me as I ran past. I was shocked. Considering how many obstacles I'd had to fight through I hadn't expected to be on pace at all. But according to what the timers were reading out I was dead on the money. Losing a mere 15 seconds to people blocking me was a nice surprise.

During the second mile, as I was moving around slower runners and people stopping to walk, some guy moved over and tried to jam me up. There was no reason for it. No one was stopped head of him blocking his way, but someone was stopped ahead of me and he knew it. He just decided to slam into me and see if he could make me run into the girl who stopped in front of me. I managed to pass her on the other side as an opening appeared at the last second and then spent the remainder of the next mile dealing with him. He was a big guy, fairly thick to be a runner. In fact, he looked nothing like a runner. He reminded me of guys I used to play soccer with who only showed up to hurt people and pick fights. And he seemed to have a problem with me. We were side-by-side a lot, periodically changing the lead when one of us got ahead of the other. I was mad, and instead of thinking about my pace I was thinking about what I was going to do the next time he threw his elbow up at my throat one more damn time. About the time I had set in my mind how I was going to take him down to the asphalt and bounce his face on it like a hockey player, he fell off the pace and dropped behind. I never saw him again.

At the end of the second mile they read out 20:15 or so. I had run a good 10 minute second mile. I was right on the goal I had set for myself. If I could maintain for most of the third mile and pick up speed at the end, I might even have a shot at coming in below 30 minutes, like I used to do with significantly less effort. I began remembering just a short time ago when a time of 30 minutes or slower was absolutely out of the question for me. I never even thought about being slow enough to hit 30 minutes in a race. It just wasn't going to happen. 30 minutes for a 5K was a casual jog. But then my training had gone off into oblivion and my efforts to get it back on track hadn't been consistent. I'd had various injuries and illnesses to throw me off-track. I'd had other life issues that wrecked my training. And now I was dealing with calf cramps and pulls and a weird problem with my left hamstring. But today I was cruising.

And then my right calf went out on me. "Ow!" I started limping immediately. My right calf, the one with the sleeve on it to protect it and help it along, cramped and pulled. It was bad, too. I was forced to limp dramaticaly, going flat-footed on my right because I couldn't push off with my calf at all. I ran like this for awhile. It quickly began to exhaust my left hip to be running so crooked and awkwardly. I knew I couldn't go for another 1.1 miles like this. I was either going to have to stop and try to stretch it out or force my right calf to function even though it hurt. I hit a water station and grabbed a cup of water. I slowed to a fast walk while I drank it and poured it on my head. I tried to extend my stride in such a way that I could stretch my right calf with each step. I stretched it like this for several strides and then I resumed running, forcing the calf to work. It worked a little bit. It still hurt, but it was at least functioning partially now. I knew if I could just get the cramp out of the muscle I could probably force it to work long enough to finish the race. And then there would be hell to pay after.

Over 5,000 runners compete in this race each year

The last mile of the Cotton Row is annoying. It's a long straight stretch up a slight embankment. It's so long, in fact, that everyone begins to feel convinced that we're near the finish. I see runners pick up speed along here and I know that they're going to regret it and suffer. What I mean by that is, if a runner is in the same part of the pack as I am by this point in the race, chances are they don't have the strength or endurance to start speeding up so far from the end and still make it to the finish line. We're further from the end than it feels.

After an eternity we are directed to turn right and run a short distance down another street before making a sharp left and running down a slight embankment on a new street. It's disheartening for the runners who were convinced that we were nearly done before. You can see it in their faces as they sigh and either complain openly or simply stop and walk out of exhaustion. This new street is long and straight, too, every bit as long as the previous one that was so long as to feel like the final stretch before the finish. That road wasn't the final stretch, but this one is.

We ran for a long way in the blazing sun, with no shade and no more water stations, before we could begin to see a banner far off in the distance. But it's another agonizing illusion. That banner is not the finish line. And every year a significant number of runners see that banner far, far down the steaming sun-scorched road and begin to speed up, expending every last drop of energy in the effort to reach what they believe is the finish line. It's like being nearly out of gas and seeing what you think is a gas station far down the road, so you press down on the gas pedal and use up your last few drops because you believe you are about to reach your goal and refuel. Unfortunately for you, you aren't, and by the time you realize it your fuel is gone and you are doomed.

I repassed all the runners who sped up on the previous stretch, wrongly believing we were nearly there. I repassed the runners who waited until the final stretch to speed up and sprint for the banner over a half a mile down the road that looks so much like the finish line. By the time they were close enough to read it and realize that it wasn't the finish, but the starting line we were approaching, they had nothing left to carry them any further. So many people stop and walk as they approach this banner, ending their long race by walking defeatedly the last hundred yards or so to the finish line, which is further ahead beyond the starting line.

The problem with a 5K is that it isn't 3 miles. It's 3.1 miles. It's that extra .1 that causes so many headaches for races that are organized in such a way as to have overlapping start and finish stretches. The Cotton Row used to be laid out differently, back when there was no 5K and only the 10K race was offered. The start was on one side of a lake and the finish was all the way around on the other side, so that you knew when you were coming to the starting line again that it meant nothing and you should actually wait until that point to kick in your afterburners and try to sprint around the lake to the finish. With this new course people still aren't quite getting it, and the starting line, with its big white banner so easily seen from far up the road and blocking the runners view of the finish line banner so that it appears to be the only banner, is killing people at the end. It's like a race with a few tricks thrown in just to mess with your head.

Last year I was too devastated from the heat, humidity and my own lack of adequate training to sprint for what appeared to be the finish only to turn out to be the start. So the starting line illusion didn't affect me. I maintained my steady pace and just motored along as best as I could. I was dying last year by this point, but I had enough left that I could continue past the starting banner and hold my speed to the actual finish line, coming in just as the clock ticked 34 minutes, the worst time I had ever recorded in my entire life.

But that was last year. This year I was supposed to be different. This year I was in pain as I came to the banner where we had started and saw the finish line beyond it, along with countless runners stopping and walking in frustration because they had further to go than they had allowed for and had run out of gas. I was limping and tearing up my injured calf. And I saw the clock up ahead reading 30-something. Oh hell, I was a long way from that clock and it was already past my target time of 30. I started to speed up as much as I could. As I got closer I could see the clock more clearly. It said 32:something. Dammit, I had really blown my time on the last mile with this stupid injury! 33:00 clicked off and I was running as fast as I could for the finish and trying not to trip or collapse before I reached the end. There were two lines running across the road. Which one was the finish?? Which one had the sensor that was going to read my computer chip and record my time? Did I have to lean forward and throw my upper body across both lines? Why were there TWO lines????

Why are there two lines?

I crossed the line(s) at what felt like a sprint, but probably looked more like a normal, healthy runner's ordinary pace. Everyone was crossing the finish and then just stopping dead. I crammed into the crowd of runners at the end and came to a stop. I could barely breathe and I didn't want to stop. I needed to keep moving. I turned sideways and slid my sweat-lubricated body through the crowd of heat-stroked zombies until I came out the other side. Then I stumbled further past, looking for the water arch that they set up each year.

Invented for kids, increasingly used at races

Once I saw it, my only thought was to get to that arch and stand under it while the water sprayed over me. The water arch is just a bunch of PVC piple with holes drilled all along it and a hose attached to one end so that water flows through it and sprays out the holes, creating a wide showerhead that dribbles streams of cold water over about 6 feet and allows multiple runners to stand under it and rapidly cool off. I stood under the water arch for a long, long time until I was completely soaked. Then I limped over to a shady spot near a wall and began trying to stretch my calves.

My corrected time, which they posted on a wall, was something like 33:15. I can't remember exactly. It wasn't good and so it wasn't memorable. It was simply better than last year. But it was 3 full minutes worse than what I was aiming for. It's frustrating that I might have reached my goal if only my calves had held up for the full race. There is nothing I can do about that now, though. So at this point I just have to start rehabbing my calves and try to strengthen them significantly while I get ready for the Warrior Dash later this year. That race isn't until September, if I remember correctly, and it isn't the sort of race where time is really the most important thing. But even so, I don't want an injury problem ruining that one for me, too. Last year I was sick as a dog for the entire week prior to the Warrior Dash. I went to the race not knowing if I'd even be able to attempt it and yet somehow managed to complete it. I didn't do well, but I did it. That was my victory then. I'm hoping for something a little better than that this year, without injury problems or sickness to make it less fun.

So what did you do over the weekend?

Distractions

So over the past few weeks my training has gone to hell. We went out of town two weekends in a row for family reasons. I couldn't train on those weekends. during the weeks between I ran, but pulled my right calf muscle. This is hugely frustrating as it was my left calf muscle I pulled before. Now both legs are gimpy.

I wasn't able to run this week because of work. I've been working long, long hours at work and not getting much rest. By the time I get home I'm so exhausted I just want to go to bed.

My race is in a week. I am not ready, as usual. I am injured, not as usual. Adding the injuries to the lack of adequate training is a new problem. I'll likely be running this one wearing a calf sleeve on both legs. Somehow I'm going to have to improve the condition of both my calves for future races. And in the meantime, I'm likely going to run a lousy time in this race due to the lack of training, the abundance of injuries, and the surprisingly hot, humid Spring we're having here.

It's so much hotter than it usually is this early. It feels July already, with the heat so hot you sunburn just working in the yard for a short time and the humidity so nasty that you can't step outside to get your mail without soaking your shirt with sweat. Last year's Cotton Row Run was a disaster for me because of the surprisingly hot weather and extreme humidity. I nearly died in that one. Crossing the finish line without walking was all I could do, and that's pretty sad.

Anyway, I have one week left to do whatever I can training-wise. What I really need is to run outside in the heat and just try to get my body more accustomed to it, even if I can't go very fast.

In other news, my mother-in-law is in town, staying at our house, attempting to boss me around with obvious contempt, and generally making me want to throw her out and lock our doors. What is it with mother-in-laws that they can't visit and be grateful instead of making everything into a battle?