Jamie Runs: Zippy 5K

Race #4 in the past 5 weeks and my third straight weekend of racing. Overdoing it…yeah…but this one was so close to home and on a nice day against some stiff competition, so I figured I’d go out to see how I could measure up. Today was the Zippy 5k in Golden Gate Park, which was my virgin PAUSATF race. (that’s Pacific Association of USA Track & Field, for those of you who are acronym challenged). The running club I have been with for about a year now, Tamalpa Runners, is a member of the association, and we race against other running clubs along the PAUSATF circuit over various distances and race types (road races, cross country, ultra-marathoning) throughout the year.

This was a relatively small, low-key race of only about 200 people in each the men’s and women’s races. As I would come to find out, low key does not mean slow…and I guess they call it “Zippy” because there are some really really fast dudes that come out for this one. Warming up with a friend of mine from work, who also happens to be an elite runner with Transports, he cautioned me that the first mile was slightly downhill, and to hold back a little as “there will be 30 or so guys that go out at sub-5:00 mile pace!” Yeah, Ok buddy…I’ll be right behind ya. Right way behind ya.

When the race started, the pace lived up to its billing. Once the gun went off, the pack in front of me separated like the Red Sea. Immediately. While I certainly am not leading the pack in most, er all the races I’ve ever run in, I don’t think I’ve ever been left in the dust this quickly at the start of a race. I took Ben’s advise and laid off a little the first mile, clocking 6:14 before slowing down a bit for the loop around Stow Lake, which had some rolling uphill and downhill. Laying off at the beginning left me with a little gas left in the tank for the last 1.1, which I was able to crank up to 6:03 pace and pass a handful of runners in the last half mile and finish in 19:34. I was thinking I may be able to break 19:00, but this was not the easiest course to do that on, so I’ll have to save the PR for another day. A humbling experience…I probably finished in the bottom third of racers while running one of my faster times ever for this distance.

Next weekend is a bye week from racing, and then the annual Relay pilgrimage on May 2-3. More to come then…

Angela and Annmarie were on hand to cheer and take some pictures.