With no bike racing to speak of on the near horizon, the team has been exploring other type-2 fun ways to keep ourselves occupied. While some members of our team have always been runners (and quite speedy ones at that), the rest of us hardly ever run, at least not with any regularity. But a few weeks ago a casual “race” goal was set, and while the training and racing results were mixed, the chance to see everyone outdoors was a win.

Photos by Scott Rettino and Matthew Vandivort / Words by Corey Morenz & Lucia D

Corey

Back in early September, I dropped in on one of our team’s casual, socially distanced coffee meet-ups. I had just finished a run in Central Park (my workout medium of choice since having a kid last summer), and mentioned that I wanted to do a 5k “race”, aka time trial, in the fall. After a year of no racing, I needed a goal to work towards - something that would motivate me to add some structure to my training.

If this was Fall 2019, the responses from the team would have gone something like this: “but Cross is Coming!”, “will that help my CX standings?”, or “too many fall foliage rides to enjoy but good for you.” 2020 is certainly not 2019. Between the cancellation of, well, everything, and a lack of comfort around large group rides, more members of the team have been getting out for the occasional jog. So, I was instead met with rather enthusiastic, “I could do that!”, “let me adjust my Garmin 5k training plan up a couple weeks,” and “I’m not sure I’ll run but I’d love to come cheer.“ The first TBD running race was officially a go!

Several weeks later and race day was here. Membership in our Slack #running channel had approximately doubled since September. Stoke level was approaching levels not seen since the last CRCA race in March. TBD CO member Barb had already thrown down the gauntlet with a speedy time (done at altitude!!) the day before. I had set myself an aggressive goal of 18:30, which would beat my previous PR by nearly 2 minutes.

We broke the race into two heats to allow for more space and more opportunity to cheer each other on and spectate. The first heat got underway and we quickly determined that 12.5 laps is a lot of laps to run around a track. The team established a cheer squad at the finish line, which was a great way to recreate the cheering and motivation of a race environment. Ultimately, I came through the line at 18:44 (in spite of dodging soccer balls and a large Crossfit class that periodically lumbered onto the track) - not quite speedy enough to catch my friend Ben, who managed to stay about 80 meters ahead of me, but good enough for first place on the TBD squad.

Now it was time to enjoy an Athletic brew, and settle in for heat two.

Lucia

While I’ve always liked the idea of running, actually doing it always felt terrible. A slow jog felt like I was maxing out, a 30 min jaunt would have me sidelined for days due to soreness, and I blew up spectacularly in every race due to terrible pacing. Having lost all motivation for bike workouts during the shutdown, I got a Garmin Forerunner so I could try following an actual running coach prescribed plan.

The Garmin Connect app has a Garmin Coach feature that provides free customized training plans synced to your watch. You punch in some basic metrics about current fitness, training schedule availability, and your race date, distance, and time goals, and it offers a few plans to choose from. I chose the Jeff Galloway plan after reading about his “run walk run” philosophy on training and recovery. Every week, I received 3 workouts: typically one chill cadence drill, one speed focused drill, and one longer run. Workouts can be rescheduled, and the rest of your plan shifts accordingly. As I started doing them, however, I was amazed that I never felt sore the next day, which kept me consistent. Workouts were relatively short (~30min including warm up/cool down), which kept me motivated. I still rode my bike on off days (though probably more than I should from a recovery standpoint), and was more excited than nervous to see if I could beat my previous personal best 5K time of 25 min.

Team race day was only half way through my training plan (13 weeks long), but I figured I’d give it my best shot, and it would be a good baseline for adjusting my eventual goal at the end of the program. I joined the second heat with Matt, Lisa and Cullen - the self proclaimed “slower group.” My goal was to pace behind Lisa, who had a similar time goal, and hopefully would prevent me from going out too fast.

“Ready, set… GO!” We were off, and for the first 200 meters or so, we were going a bit too fast - just under 7 min/mi pace. Soon enough, cooler heads prevailed and Lisa eased up to about 7:45min/mi, and I followed suit. As the early laps ticked away, I was energized by our team cheer squad and felt great, but stuck to our predetermined pace. I observed that the river adjacent straightaway had a headwind and the inland straight had a tailwind - good for that final sprint. I made a deal with myself that if I was still feeling good with 1k to go, I would allow myself to pick up the pace.

Patience has never been a my strong suit, so I eventually I decided I would move to the front, “to help pace.” With about 1.5k to go, I started to feel the drag and was slowing to >8min/mi. Shit, had I screwed myself by being impatient again? I pushed harder. My dreams of sprinting the last lap or two were completely dashed, as I was struggling to merely sustain a sub 8min pace. The windy stretch felt SO MUCH MORE WINDY. Finally, as I turned the corner for the final tailwind stretch, I mustered all the energy I had left, widened my strides, and willed myself to the finish line! 24:34! Goal met. After dry heaving a bit, I was thrilled to join back up with the team and crack open a can of Athletic.

We all reflected on how fun it was to do this team race, and Corey immediately suggested a subsequent 1 mile race followed by a seeded 4x400 team relay in mid November. Yikes!. Time to get back to training. Funny that it took a bike racing team to get me to finally enjoy running.